Business Tycoon Criticizes Governmental Policies
mosnews.com
Oleg Deripaska, the chaiman of Russia’s major holding Basic Element and the owner of the aluminium producer Rusal, said on Thursday that monetary policies of the Russian government are not clear to Russian big business. Deripaska participated in a meeting with Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov which was organized by Russia’s Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), a major industrial lobby.
Before the meeting, on Wednesday Deripaska criticized the Union of Industrialists for losing all contact with the authorities, and said that the RSPP has ceased to be an effective lobbying power, with every one of its members fending for themselves and working with the government officials on a one-on-one basis. At the meeting with the prime minister Rusal’s owner spoke up saying that the main parameters of the government’s policies, such as the inflation rate, the money supply growth rate and the ruble appreciation rate do no correspond to reality.
Deripaska also spoke against the government’s plans to increase taxes on dividends. Just before Fradkov’s meeting with the businessmen, the cabinet of ministers approved hiking the dividend tax to nine percent from the current six percent. Such changes in tax collection will negatively influence companies’ profits and, as a result, the taxes paid on profits, he said. |
