Russian government to develop economic growth program

At a government session on Thursday, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said that he would create and lead a working group to elaborate the mid-term program of the government's activity to ensure an annual 7-8% economic growth.

He also noted that he would report on the guidelines of the government's work, which the government will use to formulate its strategy.

According to Mr. Fradkov, the ministries and departments will create, on the basis of this report and within two months, plans that highlight several of the most important tasks and actions.

"The Economic Development and Trade Ministry should unite sectoral strategies," he said, "balance them out within the framework of strict observance of macroeconomic indices and prepare an answer to the question: how is the government going to ensure the annual economic growth of 7-8%."

He said that strategies that would include targeted federal programs and a series of normative and legal measures should be elaborated to remove bottlenecks in accomplishing priority goals.

According to him, precisely this approach will allow the government to avoid using the inertial variant of economic development.

"We do not have a different path to follow," he said. "The inertial variant does not contribute to the active search for internal sources of the growth."

The prime minister said that the report should spur the ministries and departments toward high economic growth rates and qualitative economic transformation. "We propose some new things in this document," he said, "and, most importantly, try to make some ministries and departments work for a final result."