Yuri SHAFRANIK Chairman Board of Directors Interstate "Soyuzneftegaz" Oil Company 1. There has been no growth of the resource base in Russia for a whole decade. There have been no major discoveries at all for ten years. It has never been that way in our history. This grievous fact (the depletion of the resource base progresses as talks about Russia's overwhelming wealth of natural resources continue) stems from the politics which undermines the future of the country. Now it will take us another decade to start developing deposits in new resource regions, to make up for the lost time, and to restore the resource base for Russia. 2. Areal recovery of the Russian economics can materialize via real projects only. There is no other way. The decumulation and redistribution of the Soviet inheritance, a process in which we got engaged, actually lead nowhere. Direct investments in new projects are necessary, and it does not matter (in this стр. 5 particular situation) where these investments come from and whether they are Russian or foreign. Currently, there is a lot of money in the country, really a lot. The Government can mobilize these funds quite easily (it is a matter of will). We are ready to provide the necessary guarantees to foreign investors from the West and from the East in order to incline major foreign and transnational companies to take part in our strategic projects. Naturally, Russia and the Russian capital must keep full control of the preparation and the implementation of the most important projects. 3. President of Russia designated a number of national projects. These projects are of a predominantly or even exclusively social character. To prevent their turning into a mere disbursement of money and triggering inflation, we must add economic projects based on direct investments. Mobilization and order are necessary for massive strategic projects, especially those carried out in the framework of the international cooperation. These projects (but ... Читать далее