Remember Medvedev’s 10-point program for improving the investment climate: *On public procurement. Our state-owned companies generally spend far more on purchasing goods, works, and services for their own needs than their foreign competitors do. I know this firsthand. Unfortunately, it is often almost impossible to explain this by anything other than corruption. In our largest companies—Transneft, Gazprom, Russian Railways (RZD), and a number of other state-controlled companies—material costs per unit of output must be reduced by at least 10 percent annually over the next three years, and this must be the key criterion for evaluating top managers’ performance. And anyone who fails to achieve this will have to leave their position. * And here is how that is being carried out:
Let’s strike at the flaws of the procurement system and low labor productivity with socialist-style economic management! Cut prices by 10 percent and report back in person at the meeting! Medvedev should have said 30 percent. They’d cut it, sure. And fulfill the five-year plan in three years (a reference to the Soviet slogan about overfulfilling state plans).