A land of great opportunities – how do we use them?

In October, the patriarch of Soviet and Russian economic science, academician Abel Aganbegyan, will turn 90 years old. In July, the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation on awarding the scientist with the Order of Alexander Nevsky was issued.

The Decree fully lists his position – the head of the department of economic theory and policy of the federal state budgetary educational institution “Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation.”

That is, a patriarch is a patriarch, but not an honorary celestial, resting on his laurels: “I am professionally engaged in the macroeconomics of Russia. Every day, day after day.”

What does he see and what does he predict now? The fall of the economy in the era of sanctions – from 10% of gross domestic product and above. Real incomes of the population will be 20% lower than the level of 2012 and 2013. When the crisis reaches its maximum, 25-30% of Russians will be below the poverty line.

Other scientists, institutions and organizations give similar forecasts. So, on August 29, at a meeting of the presidium of the government commission on improving the stability of the Russian economy under sanctions, Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov said: “There are risks of releasing employees or transferring them to various intermediate forms – part-time employment, wage cuts, forced vacations, and so on. . The maximum number is somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people.” (http://government.ru/news/46371/)

In addition to the existing 675 thousand unemployed.

The Central Bank published the “Main Directions for the Unified State Monetary Policy for 2023-2025”. (https://cbr.ru/about_br/publ/ondkp/on_2023_2025/) According to them, with the worst development of events, the fall of the economy by 2025 will be by 15-17%.

Only one should be aware that all this is far and not only a consequence of Western sanctions. The sanctions only made matters worse. It seems that a first grader knows that money is the circulatory system of the economy. And the government too. Since 2011, resolutions have been adopted to increase financial investments in the real sector of the economy. For 2013-2020, they were supposed to grow by 40%.

“But everything was done the other way around,” states Academician Aganbegyan. – Public investment over this period did not increase, but decreased by 31%. And the largest corporations subordinate to the state, headed by Gazprom, Russian Railways and others, even decreased by 35%. <...> In 2021, Russia had a record high level of income for enterprises and organizations (profit minus loss) – 29 trillion rubles. (According to Rosstat, 29.649 trillion is 2.6 times more than in 2020. — S. B.) But investments – in fixed capital, in the wage fund – were at a minimum. The main money was distributed to shareholders in the form of dividends and settled on accounts in domestic and foreign banks. And we also went to purchase foreign securities.”

Comments are superfluous.

At the same time, since Soviet times, Abel Aganbegyan has not only given and continues to give a tough analysis, but also constantly proves and proves what can and should be done, having our resources, our capabilities.

“I try to look for something good – the best enterprise, high innovation, advanced region, look at it with my own eyes,” he said 5 years ago in an interview with the Platforma expert club. – I was convinced that the word “hopelessly” cannot be applied to Russia. We are not hopelessly behind, and even in backward industries we have world-class achievements.” (https://pltf.ru/2017/04/05/abel-aganbegjan/)

For example, the situation with agriculture is well known. In particular, with milk production: “We have the worst dairy herd in the country from the countries known to me. <...> The average milk yield per cow is about 3,700 kilograms. And milk yield in a developed country starts from 5500 liters. Heaven and earth! Our share of pedigree cattle is incomparably small.”

Let’s break for the message of the day… Rosselkhoznadzor informs: from January to August 2022, a twofold increase in animal exports was recorded compared to 2021. Including cattle.

paradoxical situation. In 1990, the number of cattle in the RSFSR was 57 million heads. Of these, cows – 20.5 million.

As of May 2021 – 18.5 and 7.9 million heads, respectively.

And now it has become even less.

The number of cattle is more than 3 times less than it was in the RSFSR, meat and milk are constantly rising in price, and we are driving cattle for slaughter abroad. Live weight. So it is more profitable for buyers and less worries for sellers. Export! Someone receives foreign currency, someone buys meat and milk abroad for foreign currency, sells it in our stores. So it’s beneficial for someone.

What kind of breeding animal husbandry is there, not up to it, God forbid to save the last ordinary bulls and heifers.

However, let’s listen to Aganbegyan:

“Many areas are creating separate high-performance dairy farms. To do this, they go, first of all, to Germany and buy pedigree cattle there for a lot of money. <...> I did not find a single farm in Germany that would give milk yield of 12,500 kilograms. And in the Leningrad Region there are two such farms: “Rabititsy” – 12,533 kilograms, and “Gomontov” – 12,510 kilograms. In Germany, pedigree cattle – 53%, and in the Leningrad region – 72%. The Institute of Breeding and Genetics of Dairy Animal Breeding is also located there in the Leningrad Region. A special firm stores the semen of the best bulls in the world. You enter the office, and there are not photographs of people hanging, but portraits of the best bulls in the world. Genetic laboratories amaze with the best equipment and instruments.

So I learned and saw all this – and the month went happy.

Let us rise from the earth, from cattle-breeding farms and arable land to the heights of modern technologies. It’s just a matter of wording here. Some believe that in the field of electronics we are 30 years behind, others argue that there is no lag, because there is nothing to lag behind – there is no production of microelectronics in principle. These are opinions, shall we say, of individuals.

For complete objectivity, let’s turn to the words of an official person – to the speech of Deputy Prime Minister for the military-industrial complex Yuri Borisov (now he is the head of Roscosmos) at the conference “Electronics in Russia: the future of the industry” back in December 2019:

“Today it is silly to say that there is serial microelectronic production in Russia. We are not even in the world statistics. <...> The investment funds that the state invests in this area require a multiple, I repeat, a multiple increase. We are thinking about one or two serial factories in Russia. There are over thirty of them in China.”

It is possible not to mention the current situation – after the new sanctions of the West. But back in 2017, academician Aganbegyan talked about what we have:

“In Russia for a long time, already five years (that is, since 2012! – S. B.), the company “T-Platform” produces supercomputers – the highest achievement in this area. Moreover, such that they are acquired by organizations in Europe and the United States, as they win competitions. Such supercomputers, “Lomonosov” and “Lomonosov-2”, produced by this company, are known to the universities of the world and work at Moscow State University.

We have fabulous backlogs that are not being implemented. I can list them as much as I like. Backlogs that can change the face of entire industries for which there is no price; These are our own, not someone else’s designs. So our country is a country of great opportunities.”

From the world’s largest arable land, from the world’s most fertile soil to human capital. That is, the question is traditionally simple: how do we use these huge opportunities of ours?

Sergei Baimukhametov.

Photo by Moskovskaya Pravda