In the outgoing 2022, Russia is looking forward to the most dangerous and most important decade of its development (December 25, 2022)
In the outgoing year 2022, Russia is certainly looking forward to the most extraordinary and most important decade of its development. Having finally parted with the illusion of the possibility of naturalness with the West and entered into a fierce confrontation with it, we accidentally found ourselves in front of a broad and stable economic technological and sovereign control planned for ourselves. Moreover, in the same decade we must strengthen our unconditional political sovereignty through a cultural and, more broadly, new intellectual study of the processes of formation of a multipolar world. Is it possible? Undoubtedly. Although this is a difficult and qualitatively meaningful work.
From an economic point of view, Russia in 2022 showed an unprecedented dependence. Our volume of GDP falls by no more than 3% over the years, our trade and payment balances are at record levels (in January-November, the trade balance surplus exceeded $257 billion, the balance of payments – $225.7 billion), our manufacturing industry is at a rate of 2, 5% per year, for the first time in many years, a high rate of growth in the money supply and even investment, which fell sharply in the face of uncertainty, increased by 5.9% in January-September compared to the same period in 2021.
There is an opinion that all these achievements are an accident. Exclusively the result of the raw material nature of our economy. But this, of course, is not the case. The Russian economic system responded to the sanctions and military crises in a comprehensive manner. Commodity markets were kept from falling, including due to the unprecedented rapid use of products in new – eastern – directions. The technological gaps caused by the sanctions began to be quickly introduced by new sources of requests, also from the east. In a very short, in fact, period, the capacities of the military-industrial complex and related engineering were mobilized, which pulled metallurgy along with them. Orders in this part of the economy have grown many times – three times or more. Even the consumer market would probably have been extremely sensitive to a crisis of this magnitude, not having experienced a shock, the shock of 1998, at any rate. The enterprise engaged in the consumer sector began to quickly reorganize: traders – the search for new offers in the East and within the country, manufacturers – the capture of niches vacated by the departed enterprises of Western companies.
The enumeration of such positive results at the end of the year seems banal (nothing revolutionary happened), but, firstly, we must remember the apocalyptic forecasts of the beginning of the year, and secondly, about real strength. In the late 1990s, the topic “Why didn’t the Russian people die?” was fashionable among economists and sociologists in Russia. The answer was a survival study in the 1990s in the Russian provinces. At present, it should become an urgent task for theoretical economists to understand and fix in models due to what systemic property they turned out to be so successful and stable in the conditions of the crisis in the Russian economy.
Where will we lead next and what must be done to attract the attention of a very high opinion in the new world? We write about it in this issue of “Expert”.
In short: four ingredients.
First. It’s time to forget that we have a small market, and therefore we do nothing. It manufactures its products, it must be remembered that there are fast-growing markets nearby, East and East-East Asia. The strategies of successful public year companies are built on this foundation.
Second. We must forget that we cannot produce something complex ourselves – machine tools or fine chemicals. There is a theory that has been discovered that fortune can quickly recover any segment of the economy where it manifests itself over the past 50-60 years. It happens behind a collection of competencies and educational systems. USSR and machine tool building, and specialized metallurgy, and fine chemistry. All this can be restored in a few years. For example, the TechnoNIKOL company, which has reached the stage of purchasing only the best Western equipment, is waiting for the creation of a design bureau and already has the ability to purchase the necessary equipment itself.
Third. It is necessary to save relatively low prices for energy resources within the country (electricity, gas, oil) and a strong ruble. These are the factors of our productivity that automatically attract capital and qualified personnel from all over the world. Eyewitnesses of the 2000s say that this was the case in Russia before the devaluation of the ruble. This is a very important macro-topic, since big capital and the budget do not provide such a great economic effect and increase their individual efficiency at the expense of the domestic market. This cannot be allowed. Now both the budget and raw material companies should provide resources for the growth of the manufacturing industry.
Fourth. Russia can offer the developing world a new format of technological cooperation. About this in an interview “Will the Russian technological collapse await?” on page 66 says Dmitry Belousov. A format open to research and independent research in the field of economics. The scientific and engineering-technological human capital of Russia makes it possible to do this and become the central intellectual application of such a new technological institution.
On the economic front, the time for retreat and defense is long past. It’s time to start.