How to replace oil to save the Russian economy

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The expression that “it's time to get off the oil needle” is probably already like a parasite phrase. Such a collective diagnosis of all the troubles of the Russian economy.

And for officials, this has become a mantra - as soon as it comes to the fact that a specific plan is needed to overcome the crisis, an economic development strategy and other specific measures are needed, the usual is issued - “we need to get rid of oil dependence”. That's the whole plan. Thanks, Cap!

The alarm was sounded about the need to change the economic model right after the start of the 2008 crisis. Then the 2020 Strategy appeared, providing for the innovative development of Russia. But the rapidly recovering oil prices led to the fact that it was treated by everyone as a kind of toy that has little to do with reality. But in vain. The strategy set the right direction for development. Another issue is that the document was too abstract, it did not indicate specific steps.

After all, what is innovation? By and large, anything can be summed up under this definition. Skolkovo was created, the benefits of which are still very dubious, - an innovation, they began to use a tractor with a GPS beacon in the village - an innovation, they invited all students in all schools to distribute e-books with flexible screens - an innovation. Did we eventually move from this to a new innovative model of the economy? Of course not. Therefore, if you act on the basis of expediency and efficiency, and not on the principle of "did not do, and did not have to redo," then innovations should not be a goal, but a means of developing certain industries and areas. That's how in a dispute ChubaisWith Grefat the Gaidar Forum: for Chubais, the main thing is to introduce some kind of technology (solar panels and wind turbines in this case), but to what extent, with what efficiency and why in general is not important.

Any state has three main development paths: the first lies in the financial sector, the second in the agrarian sector, and the third path is the development of industry. In our conditions, you will not be full of the financial sector alone - the country is too big, both in terms of population and territory. The financial development path is well suited for small countries like Switzerland and Liechtenstein. No matter how many banks are built in Moscow, they will not help feed the village in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The development of agriculture with our territories could be a good option, but it, at best, will allow us to simply exist, but not to develop at a faster pace. The stake on the agricultural sector can play, for example, in Ukraine with a collapsed industry, and living on loans.

Industry remains. Some time ago it was believed that the main thing was the possession of intellectual property, and production was the lot of backward countries. A couple of decades ago, the Chinese were not called anything other than cheap labor, but at some point they began to talk about the Celestial Empire as a new center of power, hastily declare the return of production back and call for curbing the ambitions of a new potential world hegemon. It is becoming clear that the availability of our own production facilities is a prerequisite for stable economic development. It is our own industry that makes it possible to create goods with high added value and bring stable income to both the state treasury and the people employed in these enterprises. And the removal of enterprises dramatically reduces the possibility of creating jobs, and in fact gives away technology to competitors for nothing. The example with China clearly showed that no attempts to protect intellectual property by patents and the complexity of reproduction are not obstacles to create your own analogue.

So, let's say we have decided on the need to develop production on our own territory. The matter is small (in fact, the most important thing) - to decide what to produce. With the tenacity of a woodcutter, we rushed to save the domestic auto industry. With the strength of the principle “contrary to” here, in terms of the strength of zeal, perhaps, perhaps, the salvation of national football can be compared. Yes, we have colossal capacities, tens of thousands of people are employed in the industry. But somehow we ignored the fact that brand strength is extremely important in the automotive market. To just come out with an almost unknown brand is a failure. Decades will pass before the same "Lada" will be quoted in other countries. On the other hand, attempts to improve the efficiency of auto enterprises will lead to massive staff layoffs and social problems.

Another striking example is the coal industry. The demand for coal in the world is steadily declining, as it is being replaced by new, more environmentally friendly sources of energy, for example, natural gas. You can invest as much money as you want in this industry, make mining incredibly innovative, but there will be no sense from this.

Or the food industry: its development is necessary to provide the population with high-quality and affordable products, but, alas, it will not become the locomotive of the economy. At least due to the fact that export opportunities are severely limited. In Europe, many farms and food factories are faced with a crisis of overproduction, so they have plenty of their cheaper goods. In many CIS countries, purchasing power is low, and other potential markets are too far away for large food exports.

Therefore, the emphasis should be placed on the production of modern high-tech products, which provide more income, and, what is important, are in good demand in the world. One of these promising areas can be the production of microelectronics. At the moment, we have a few assembly plants, but the production of components is in trouble.

Printed circuit boards are produced in small quantities, and the chips are independently produced only by MCST. Moreover, computers based on chips "Elbrus" from MCST are many times more expensive than imported counterparts with lower performance. So their use is advisable only in government and defense institutions with classified information. By investing in microelectronics, we can lure mass consumer electronics manufacturers out of Asia. There are prerequisites for this: a cheap ruble, cheap energy and a convenient location between Europe and Asia. Firstly, the attracted technologies will be a novelty for Russia and will open up new horizons, and secondly, the demand for electronics is growing steadily all over the world (by almost 8% per year).

But this will require serious investments, including state ones. Private investors are still wary of the unpredictable Russian economy, and not everyone is able to organize the production of the same chips using modern technical processes on their own. Intel Corporation, for example, has invested $ 5 billion in a state-of-the-art production line. Yes, it's expensive. But either we stop hiding $ 385 billion of our gold and foreign exchange reserves, and go to a new level, creating a cluster of advanced industries, or we will continue to manually solder on the knee, one board a day, and wonder why no one wants to buy them. …

Microelectronics is just one prime example. Unfortunately, in our country very little attention is paid to the development of high-tech industry, which is inconceivable without microelectronics. Malaysia spends 5.4% of GDP on the development of this sphere, the USA 1%, Russia only 0.12% of GDP.

It is also important to develop related industries, which can lead to the emergence of new technologies and the creation of highly productive jobs. Today we have even abandoned the once title astronautics. Alas, the mere fact of the commissioning of a new cosmodrome, built for big money, counting only for one type of old launch vehicles, is not enough. Killed and the construction of satellites to perform ordinary tasks such as communications or constant monitoring of the earth's surface. All hope is only for imported components …

The fact that Dauria Aerospace was able to create and sell a microsatellite to the Americans, and enthusiasts from Lin Industrial on the outskirts of the Moscow industrial zone, are trying to test rocket engines - great, but, you must agree, it is somehow shallow for Russia, a country with a claim to great power. At the same time, modern trends show that astronautics is now in great demand. Here is a private company SpaceX in America received an order for the launch of a constellation of satellites from the no less commercial company Iridium for as much as $ 492 million. But this money could come to us! Now the volume of the world market for space services is estimated at 400 billion dollars (more than 50% - the commercial segment) and annually grows by about 5%. This is the total volume that includes the construction of satellites. And launches - the pride of Russia - account for only 10% of this amount.

In addition to the fact that very serious money is spinning in this area, which can support economic growth well, space development is also at the cutting edge of technology. They bring new materials, the production of a component base, and stimulate research and development. Many more down-to-earth industries will receive an incentive to develop.

But electronics is not the only promising direction. Natural resources also have good potential. If the demand for crude oil in the world is no longer growing at the same rate, then it is time to switch to the export of finished products of the petrochemical industry. In the meantime, petrochemical plants provide mainly domestic needs, and even then not completely. Petrochemistry is not only the production of fuels, but also of various rubbers, plastics, pesticides and even drugs. The niche is huge, with a large supply of development.

Or the timber industry. Now the forest is simply blasphemously exported from the country in its raw state. Forest is an excellent renewable source for many environmentally friendly materials that are gaining popularity around the world. This is the production of fuel pellets, which displace coal at European thermal power plants, and the production of affordable building materials, and the production of cellulose, which is used in the chemical and food industries and in medicine. The scope of application of woodworking products is extremely wide.

Also, rare-earth metallurgy can be attributed to the number of promising ones. Unlike ferrous metals, rare earths are constantly finding new sales markets, mainly related to clean energy. This is the production of batteries, which are required more and more, and generators with electric motors. At the same time, Russia ranks second in the world in terms of reserves of rare-earth metals (in the first place, China, which has 47% of the world's reserves). Now this industry is almost undeveloped in our country - 90% of rare earth metals mined in Russia are exported and processed in other countries. Prospects are laid not only in pulling the blanket over ourselves, but also in the stable growth of demand for rare earth metals by 5% - 8% per year.

In order to get out of the pit of the crisis, Russia urgently needs a clear definition of several such priority sectors that have the greatest potential for development, which can become a driver of development for other industries, and the application of an equally clear development program. It is quite possible to start with the above indicated. In turn, all this must be supported by the strictest control (including public), otherwise all good undertakings, according to the old Russian tradition, will slide to closed “elite” clubs like Skolkovo and work for the sake of beautiful reports and promises to top management.

Dmitry Peskov: If you don't have technology, you have nothing to defend with

Dmitry Peskov (full namesake of the press secretary of the Russian president, which gives him a lot of trouble) is a top manager of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI), and a person with whom technological breakthroughs are strongly associated. In the West, the tabloids write that the "people of Peskov" have already invented teleportation, in our country he shocks the liberal public, admiring tsarist Russia. And now the liberals struck back: Peskov recently said on social networks that a group of pro-Western economists is going to "bang" the National Technology Initiative, which Peskov is also working on. They say, why does Russia need its robots, we will sell oil, and we will buy whatever you want from China. For two weeks, Peskov rushed about forums and public discussions, stirred up everyone even more, saying, for example, that “ideas are more important than technologies”, finally, he reached Komsomolskaya Pravda, and we had as much as an hour to find out who these “liberals” were. why the wilderness farmers will ruin the country, and how does it feel to dream of the future when the hawthorn is drunk around you. Oddly enough, we started with the hawthorn.

FANTASY SAVES FROM POVERTY

- I always feel awkward when I write or talk about modernization, innovation and other lofty matters. In a country where half of the population only has enough money for food, and tens of thousands of people drink hawthorn, we pretend that we are just about to build some kind of high-tech future. And you?

- In the 1920s and 1930s, the people were much poorer than they are now. But it was then that the GOELRO plan was invented and implemented, and later - they created a nuclear power plant and launched a man into space. All this was done thanks to fantasies - fantasies in a poverty-stricken and devastated country. It was more difficult for our great-grandfathers, but they succeeded because they did not revel in difficulties, but dreamed.

- Then there was a dream. But now all I see is despondency.

- Now it is really more difficult to make society concentrate on a better future, on how to achieve it. In the early Soviet years there was one radio station, and if this radio station was talking about a dream, then it was easier for the country to dream. And today the consciousness of people is deformed, people are sinking into the trap of the "disgusting present."

Unfortunately, in Russia, in comparison with the USSR, there are not so many people who could become leaders of change. In the USSR, there was a constant selection of the most talented, they were sent to study at technical universities. Today, in order for our country to survive in the economic cataclysms of the future, even more talented people are needed than were required during the Soviet era. Yes, from year to year about 50 thousand children win Olympiads and go to prestigious universities. And we need 500 thousand. Actually, our job is to find these half a million young geniuses and learn, pump them properly.

HOW MANY SKOLKOVY IS NECESSARY

- The question is how to find and how to learn. You said the other day that the so-called “innovation funnel” in Russia did not work. "Funnel" is when talents are gathered in one place, and they work hard. As in Skolkovo. Why didn't the funnel suit you?

- How does the funnel work? We took a hundred people-innovators. We selected ten of them. These ten were given some money. Then seven went bankrupt, two were able to make a small business, and one built a new company.

- It's great. The strong survive.

- This principle is tragic. One successful company won't make you an economy, this time. What to do with the losers is two. The principle works in Silicon Valley, where there is unlimited access to human capital. They don't care how many people go broke, lose their homes, go crazy. The Chinese will give birth to another hundred thousand. And we do not have such an opportunity. We view this approach as inhuman and ineffective. We cannot work in a model, when a hundred talented young guys came to us, we made one person, and 99 threw them into the landfill to drink hawthorn.

- That's it, this is the end for Skolkovo, you called it “inhuman”.

- Skolkovo has the right to life, just Skolkovo alone is not enough, and it should not be so that only Skolkovo - and nothing else. About a thousand very good startups gathered in Skolkovo, from which several dozen interesting companies turn out per year. For example, Moscow, Tula, Arkhangelsk hospitals are equipped with exo-skeletons that allow paralyzed people to be put on their feet. This is a product of one of the Skolkovo companies. But this is very little.

Skolkovo is an attempt to create an ideal city, a model for everyone. The city is being built, the first buildings appear. It's pretty beautiful there. But there is one critical issue. Well, we will sharpen a bright future in one particular suburb of Moscow, so what? We have other cities that are not inferior to Moscow in terms of their scientific potential. It is quite possible to make your own models there. But do not copy Skolkovo, but first think about the goal.

The classical venture economy (venture - a system of market selection of breakthrough companies - "KP") has no goal. Everyone is experimenting with everything, suddenly something will work out. But - if suddenly the result is a company with such a super-product that it does not yet have a sales market in Russia, then it leaves. It turns out that we invested money in her, and she left and took the technology with her.

- Capitalism and the market are certainly evil, but this evil at least works. Okay, what in return? You proposed - instead of the "innovation funnel" - the concept of "Russian rocket". What it is?

- If a strong group of guys suddenly appeared in the region, then we must support these guys, this company at her home. Do not drag it to Moscow, to the “city of the future”, but let it go straight from Kazan or Novosibirsk to the world markets. As this "rocket" takes off, new creative teams, new companies and infrastructure will be created around it: these guys will want to build better houses for themselves, a school, a world-class clinic.

The rudiments are already there. Tavrida-Electric company in Sevastopol, Elecard and Mikran in Tomsk, Transas, Geoscan, Diakont, Biocad companies in St. Petersburg. They are already strong. They are already eager to enter the world markets. They are exporting.

- Okay, I have no doubt that these are excellent companies, only Russia is still not like Japan or Singapore. Probably tens of thousands of such companies are needed for our vast country. And then I cling to your words - "the guys will gather." Around what? There used to be a Komsomol, he supervised circles. Now how, around the local branch of "United Russia", forgive God?

- We have already opened about forty quantoriums in the regions of Russia, these are palaces of pioneers of a new type. It is not people appointed by the regional administration who teach there, but young engineers from leading technology companies who understand what children need to be taught.

There are special Olympiads, in 2016 more than 5 thousand young children passed through them. Someone constructs Jedi swords, for God's sake, and someone removes neurosignals from the brain. The Sirius center has grown up in Sochi. In general, in Russia in recent years, more than 20 accelerators have appeared (schools where they teach both innovation and business - "KP"), where young children are helped to turn their idea into a business. Test hypotheses, enter the markets. Only through IIDF (Fund for the Development of Internet Initiatives) over the past year passed, more than 30 thousand people studied.

- Nobody knows anything about it. I am sure readers are hearing about quantoriums and IIDF for the first time. Why?

- We do not believe in PR. We do not like the idea when they shout about something on TV, put pressure on the brain, but there is no content behind it. We do not really like the words "modernization" and "innovation", because innovation for the sake of innovation does not interest us. Build a high-tech economy in the country? Yes. This is the goal.

- Again, for what?

“For three things. High quality of life, national security and economic stability of the state.

KUDRIN REMOVED FROM THE LIBERALS

- Recently you wrote on social networks that there are people, structures that do not need any innovations in Russia. And that they are preparing an attack on you. What kind of people are they?

- The intrigue is very simple. There is a long-standing tradition of believing that new technologies are impossible in Russia. Let the industry develop the United States and China, those who can. And on the share of Russia - hairdressing salons, hotels, restaurants. And let Russia constantly carry out reforms. Proponents of this view adore reforms, certainly institutional, adore talking about economic freedom and the protection of property rights. Oh, you still want to develop something industrial there? Embed in value chains if you want. This is when there is a world leader company, and you supply it with some detail.

- This is what the liberals say. You are quoting Kudrin.

- Maybe Kudrin of previous years. Now we are working closely with him, he supports our idea of a national technological initiative. But there are ultraliberals who are tough against it.

- Many have decided that your opponents have entered the Higher School of Economics, is that so?

- There are many reasonable people with whom there is something to talk about.

- How close are these liberals to the authorities and can influence its decisions? By the way, the president’s economic advisor Sergei Glazyev is not a liberal at all.

- You are asking questions that are better to ask my namesake, the president's press secretary. We do not think in the “enemies” paradigm. We work with supporters.

THE ROBOTS RETURNED MARX TO LIFE

- A false choice of some kind, or the protection of private property and economic freedom, or technology. Can't you do it together?

- The thing is that ultraliberals also say the right things. Of course, we need a guarantee of ownership. Independent Courts. But the idea that we will fit into the life cycle of global corporations and everything will be fine is deeply false. Who orders the part, he assigns a price to it. If you just make it for someone, they tell you: dude, here's your two percent profit, and live from them. This is a disaster for us. With two percent of the profits, you will not pay social security contributions, you will not build schools and hospitals. You will not invest in research, in science.

- High-tech colony.

- Yes! This is the approach of people from the deep past. The Americans have taught us for many years that no industrial policy is needed. And suddenly they begin to return industrial production to their territory - from China. Trump suddenly calls the head of Apple Cook, and says, "Listen, come on, are you going to collect iPhones in America?" This is pure politics, there is no immediate economic benefit behind it.

But another problem arises. New industries are robots. There are very few jobs for people. Who will the robots sell the product to, other robots? People have jobs and, consequently, less and less income. This is how the concept of a guaranteed minimum income was born. The state pays you $ 500 just to be a citizen. And you buy gadgets with this money. In a strange way, the world is returning to the idea of communism. The modern ideology (the so-called "singularity") of the USA and European countries is radical Marxism of the 21st century.

- So this is right for Russia. We love Marxism and freebies.

- Maybe, but we still have the lowest percentage of robotization in Europe among developed countries. For the time being, we prefer to pay salaries to people rather than robots.

RUSSIAN PARMESAN WILL NOT BE SATISFIED

- Nevertheless, in the summer you told "KP" that cars without a driver are already driving around Moscow, which will deprive taxi drivers of their jobs.

- Three cars are being tested by Volgobas, KAMAZ and the NAMI institute. In addition, American Tesla cars with autopilot move around Moscow. You can drive around the Third Ring of Moscow without ever putting your hands on the steering wheel. This is the harsh reality of 2016. Taxi drivers will stay with us for some time. Technology is one thing, law is another. If an autonomous vehicle hits someone, who will answer? In the United States, taxis are already unmanned in two cities, but the taxi driver is sitting in the cab precisely because of the requirements of the law.

But let's forget about time. Sooner or later it will still be. Truckers, taxi drivers, bus drivers will lose their jobs. Now attention, a question. When you order a taxi from your iPhone, do you think that due to technology, taxi drivers earn less, or even lose their jobs? When a living accountant is replaced with a computer program, do you imagine thousands of women, maybe even single women and with children who are left without a profession or money? The concept of social harmony is not “wired up” in a person's head. But history shows that people without jobs can ruin society if they are not given a decent future.

- However, liberals say that such people only benefit because they quickly retrain and get a better job.

- That's what the illiterate say. Economists have long shown that human rationality is greatly exaggerated. Man is limitedly rational.

And then those who say: let's get back to the origins appear on the stage. The robots will do everything for us, and we will put on linen clothes, we will tie our hair with braid, and go to the village to grow oats without fertilizers, like our ancestors, and cook cheese like the French. Think about eternal values, about the historical fate of Russia. This path is even more dangerous than the path of the ultraliberals. Our country remains defenseless and unarmed. If you don't have technology, you have nothing to defend with. Other guys will come. They will control the pipelines. I'm afraid they will not leave alone the wonderful people who created Russian farms and subsistence farming. We will simply be disconnected from the infrastructure using neurotechnology. When Samsung's phones began to explode, the company turned them off remotely, and that was all. What prevents you from turning off cars, televisions and lights in apartments in the same way?

- German Sterligov will tell you that he has already given up electricity.

- Yes? And where did he say this, isn't it on your radio?

BAN AS A PART OF CULTURE

- Good. The West has put forward the idea of a minimum guaranteed income. For the Russian mind, money cannot be an idea, so this “back to the origins” was spontaneously formed. But you just ridiculed the soil-cultivation. What then do you propose for your wonderful new high-tech world, what idea?

- We have huge undeveloped areas. It will take centuries to develop our own territory with all the technologies. This should become a national idea, a national concept.

- "No need to litter." All this is ethics, education, culture, and these things are extremely difficult to translate into the language of algorithms and solutions.

- Translated. We need to create rules and learn to follow them. It was very dirty in Germany at the end of the Middle Ages. And then one prince introduced harsh laws. At first, people swore, and then they stopped littering.

- Do you think this series of bans that the authorities stamp out almost every day is good?

- Any culture is built on a ban. Culture is always a sequence of taboos that separate what is possible from what is not. This is a very delicate matter. But the whole culture is built around this matter.

- I am embarrassed that we are killing dissent with these prohibitions. You can not only litter, but also express your thoughts. Yes, thoughts can be wild. But often scientific and technological breakthroughs were made by antisocial people, free from rules and regulations. As a result, we get, according to Saltykov-Shchedrin, "science and art under the supervision of the district gendarmes."

- It's true. There will never be any technological breakthroughs in such a model. But before we dealt with it. There were strict prohibitions in the Russian Empire, but cultural diversity coexisted with them. The line between norm and prohibition cannot be drawn once and for all. It is developed in the struggle.