Russia's Putin outlines plan to aid innovative industries
 MOSCOW, May 27 (Prime-Tass) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin outlined Wednesday a plan to aid innovative industries.
"The status and prestige of an innovator and inventor should be promoted in the business community," he said at a meeting of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "If I'm allowed to say so, we should make creativity fashionable."
Putin said he was unhappy with high-tech products' small share of the country's economy.
Innovative products account for a little over 5% of Russia's economy, he said.
Putin proposed including high-tech companies in the government's list of businesses eligible for bailouts and increasing subsidies for loans taken out for technological modernization.
He also said the government supported a bill seeking to allow research outfits and education institutions to set up small innovative businesses. The bill was sponsored by members of the State Duma, the parliament's lower house.
Putin said the government had invested about 30 billion rubles in special economic zones, IT parks and research centers over the past three years.
Meanwhile, Yevgeny Primakov, head of the chamber, proposed that the government provide tax credits for at least three years to innovative businesses in order to promote import substitution. Under Russia's tax credit system, investment expenditures are deducted from a company's tax payments and the company subsequently repays the sum, with interest, over a certain period of time.
(31.1465 rubles - U.S. $1)
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27.05.2009 18:39
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