President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday expressed his frustration at the sluggish pace of research and development in Russia and snapped at Sergei Chemezov, chief of state corporation Russian Technologies.
Medvedev criticized a report by Chemezov that described the corporation’s efforts to develop new technology, prompting the executive to ask for a chance to respond to the presidential “remark.” Medvedev bristled.
“No need for it. This is not a remark of mine but a verdict,” Medvedev responded. “Remarks are what you say. Everything I say is cast in granite.”
In particular, he scolded Chemezov for listing efforts that cannot be called innovation. Projects such as the production of energy-efficient light bulbs — to replace cheaper, incandescent lights — should be classified as replacing imports, since the technology is already developed, he said.
“What we need is breakthrough technology and new solutions,” Medvedev told a meeting of the Commission for Modernization and Technological Development of the Economy, a body that he created to seek ways to ease Russia’s reliance on energy exports.
Attendees included Kremlin and government officials, chiefs of other state-controlled companies such as Gazprom and Rosneft, and private business people, including Yury Milner, a co-owner of Digital Sky Technologies, which owns stakes in web sites including Facebook.
Medvedev held the meeting at Gazprom’s headquarters and took a dig at the country’s biggest energy companies for spending too little on research and development. R&D investment by Royal Dutch Shell amounts to $5.67 per ton of generic fuel that it produces, he said, compared with 29 cents for Gazprom and 6 cents for Rosneft.
“What a difference!” Medvedev said. He served as Gazprom’s chairman in 2000 and then from 2002 until becoming president in 2008.
Gazprom chief Alexei Miller said his company was the world’s fifth-largest investor in R&D, according to the proportion of the spending to revenue. The company spent 12 billion rubles ($406 million) on the work in the first nine months of 2009, he said in a speech at the meeting.
All in all, state-controlled companies will spend 2 trillion rubles — or $70 billion — on investment next year, roughly the same as in 2009, Medvedev said. Just 2 percent of those funds, or 40 billion rubles, will go toward R&D, he said.
Medvedev urged ministers and other officials to order state companies to increase that spending and vote for such decisions as members of the companies’ boards. He also ordered the Kremlin’s Control Department to submit a progress report in three months.
A way to develop new technology could be the creation of joint ventures with foreign partners and the hiring of foreign researchers, Medvedev said.
“Don’t be shy, when it’s needed, to recruit specialists from outside the country,” he said. “We can do it these days. We can pay them money.”