E-Russia Project Awaits Approval

by Tatiana Smolensky, Tax-News.com, Moscow

03 July 2001

On Thursday of this week, the Russian government is due to consider approval of a federal project entitled "Electronic-Russia" which aims to promote the IT industry and e-commerce throughout the country. The price tag for implementing the project is expected to be around 76 billion rubles and it will take eight years to complete if given the go ahead.

E-Russia has been on the drawing board for sometime now and has been carefully developed by the Economic Development and Trade Ministry with contributions from the Education, Communications and Industry, Science and Technology, Russian Aviation and Space Agency, the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information, and even the Federal Security Service.

The private sector has also had a say in the project and it is anticipated that some firms will contribute to the cost of the initiative. The federal budget will contribute about 39 billion rubles, regional budgets are expected to come up with 22.5 billion rubles and the remainder will be the responsibility of businesses.

Those involved in the project have explained that they want to see Russia fulfilling its IT and e-commerce potential and competing on an international level, but they also intend to simplify the complex paper-work currently involved for many individuals and business when they undertake administrative work, by introducing e-commerce and digital laws.

'This program to some extent is an instrument to make society, authorities and business understand that they should move in this direction toward the information age,' said Boris Kuznetsov of the Higher School of Economics and an adviser on the project.

Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref told the American Chamber of Commerce last week that '[E-Russia] is exceptionally important from a political point of view. From the point of view of financing from the federal budget, it is not a top priority, except maybe in the area of the computerization of rural schools and Internet access for schools and educational institutions.'

Kuznetsov says he would like to see all benefit from the project throughout the country, not just in the cities where most IT companies are currently situated which means that awareness generally stays within the urban areas. 'Something should be done about regional inequalities, because now IT services are concentrated in big cities,' he said.

He added: 'Mostly the programme has to answer to the general trends of IT and those areas where the state and only the state can do something.'

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