Audit Chamber for sensible state and business relations

In Russia the relations between the state and businesses should be shaped so that the word "oligarch" is excluded from the vocabulary of the population, Chairman of the Russian Audit Chamber Sergei Stepashin said to the All-Russian conference, "The Role and Place of Audit Institutions in the Russian Economy" in Tyumen, Siberia.

"The 'oligarchs' often use their large profits for improper purposes," the chairman said.

"For a long time, society has debated who should profit from the exploitation of natural resources and how natural resources should be used," he said.

According to UNESCO, the cost of natural resources in Russia is $160,000 per capita - 10 times higher than in Europe, the USA and Canada. Many Russian citizens live below the poverty line, although international experience shows that natural rent is the main source of national wealth for countries that are rich in natural resources, Stepashin said.