RusEnergy

03/06/2005 (10:13) RZD News - To privatize oil and gas industry and remove whatever available limitations of overseas capital participation in the fuel and energy complex is what the Russian economy presently needs, Andrei Illarionov, economic adviser to President Vladimir Putin, said in Moscow on June 2. Those are the principal remedies he sees to cure Russia's economic troubles, which repeat Dutch and Venezuelan problems. Illarionov offered other measures, particularly, to remove limits of private capital investment in pipelines, ports and power grids, sell energy assets to nonresidents, and put an end to the OPEC monopoly. The expert figuratively described the economic problem he terms "Dutch disease" as "obesity, cancer and neurosis all in one." Excessive economic dependence on raw materials has sharply deteriorated the quality of Russian economic policies to make them "childish," he added. "Economic authorities' head is swimming with growing petroleum export profits, so they think they may do whatever they like," Illarionov said. He also highlighted symptoms of the "Venezuelan disease," which had recently appeared in Russia. The presidential adviser substantiated that point with a retrospect of developments in Venezuela and certain other OPEC countries, which nationalized petroleum industry several years ago making their gross domestic product decrease, reports RIA-Novosti. "The Russian economy has developed a cluster of bad diseases that demand complicated treatment," the expert said. He warned against spending Stabilization Fund money on domestic purposes, in particular, to finance ambitious infrastructure projects offering another medical metaphor: such allocations will allow "a tumor to spread its infected cells throughout the body".