Vladimir Putin considers shortage of modern managerial personnel a problem

Russia is suffering from a certain shortage of modern-day managers, believes Vladimir Putin.

"We do not have too many modern managing personnel, and this is one of the problems in present-day Russia: there are many administrators, but few modern managers," the president said at a news conference in the Kremlin as he replied to the question why some far from the most efficient executives are sometimes kept within the nomenklatura and given other and no less responsible government posts.

"I do not know of any such examples at a very high level, perhaps there is only one, and I would not like to make it public now," replied the president. "Besides, a person may have worked in one area, and was moved to another not connected with the one where he had problems," he emphasised.

He pointed out that "the simplest thing is to wave a sabre, cut off heads and dismiss people and look a tough leader against this backdrop." In the president's view, "it is much more important to treat people with care, including those in public view who, despite fire of criticism, worthily bore the heavy burden of managing enterprises, branches or regions." "Their experience and their capabilities should be exploited," the head of state believes.

Reverting to the personnel squeeze, the president said: "We are trying to solve this problem by many means, including through various programmes and with support of our partners abroad." "Unless these problems are solved we will, of course, hardly be able to make progress in achieving targets we set before us," Putin stated.