ALEKSEY VEDEV: IT WAS NECESSARY TO PRIVATIZE APPROXIMATELY ONE THIRD OF ECONOMY
Aleksey Vedev, Leading researcher, Financial Studies Department of the Gaidar Institute, shared his opinion on efficiency of privatization in Russia in the 90-s with “Gazeta.ru”.
Aleksey Vedev said: “It was vital to start privatization without any doubt. However, everything was arranged extremely bad, awkward and, most critically, unfair and inefficient.
I think that it was necessary to privatize approximately one third of economy, i.e. food industry, service sector, restaurants and other light industries focused on medium sized or small business”.
According to Aleksey Vedev, key sectors of economy, i.e. natural resources, iron and non-ferrous metal industry had to be privatized gradually and in other manner, that is, via stock exchange, observing rights of minority shareholders. Expert assumed that probably it would have been reasonable to attract foreign investments which could secure corporate governance in addition to money.
Vedev ranted: “It happened that a kind of a check privatization was announced in a poor, poverty stricken country whose citizens lost all their savings in 1991-1992. There were no internal resources to do it. Only grey economy operators or people sitting close to these assets could afford to buy something. As a result, it is them who got everything. What kind of a privatization one could speak about when salaries of most of citizens amounted to Rb150-180? Sneeringly, it was called people’s privatization but this was just simply funny.
I think that it was necessary to privatize approximately one third of economy, i.e. food industry, service sector, restaurants and other light industries focused on medium sized or small business”.
According to Aleksey Vedev, key sectors of economy, i.e. natural resources, iron and non-ferrous metal industry had to be privatized gradually and in other manner, that is, via stock exchange, observing rights of minority shareholders. Expert assumed that probably it would have been reasonable to attract foreign investments which could secure corporate governance in addition to money.
Vedev ranted: “It happened that a kind of a check privatization was announced in a poor, poverty stricken country whose citizens lost all their savings in 1991-1992. There were no internal resources to do it. Only grey economy operators or people sitting close to these assets could afford to buy something. As a result, it is them who got everything. What kind of a privatization one could speak about when salaries of most of citizens amounted to Rb150-180? Sneeringly, it was called people’s privatization but this was just simply funny.