State list of strategic enterprises to be composed in Russia

Russian President Administration is preparing the decree on composing the list of strategic Russian enterprises, Deputy Minister on Property Relations Aleksander Braverman said.
Presidential decree is to define the chief criteria for relating enterprises to strategic ones and increasing state control on their privatization and bankruptcy. The work on the decree was initiated by Ministry for Economic Development, Ministry on Property and Russian Security Council.
 
According to Mr. Braverman, currently the state “has no absolute control over the procedures of intentional bankruptcy for federal state unitary enterprises of this kind”. Up to 10 percent of such enterprises go bankrupt every year.
 
Meanwhile, Head of Russian Auditing Chamber Sergey Stepashin is proposing to compose the state list for financial security of enterprises, RIA-Novosti reports. Mr. Stepashin made this idea public at the conference devoted to the results of the first year after the law “On Insolvency (Bankruptcy)” had been passed.

Mr. Stepashin said that the single state list of enterprises due to financial recovery must become the backbone of the system of state control over the operation of the strategic and military enterprises executing the state military orders and mobilization assignments.

Sergey Stepashin said that in the end of 2003 the Auditing Chamber examined the efficiency of the Federal Service on Insolvency and Bankruptcy in 1988-2002. The examination detected that the state had huge losses during bankruptcy of state unitary enterprises. Big tax and loan debts were written off, Mr. Stepashin said. CEOs conducted deals to deprive the state unitary enterprises of their property.

The Head of Auditing Chamber states that dishonest businessmen still apply the bankruptcy procedure. This procedure is used for liquidating competitors, creating artificial deficit of certain products and even for political purposes to destabilize the society. This made Mr. Stepashin say that the Auditing Chamber is ready to accept the responsibility for examining and issuing decisions on the facts of intentional bankruptcy.

"Bankruptcy procedure is supposed to become one of the elements of the system for the country’s economy recovery”, said the Head of Auditing Chamber. "The transition from corrupted profit-oriented business to efficient system of financial recovery is one of the means to achieve the purpose of doubling GDP by 2010”.

Source: Neftegazovaya Vertikal