Economic Questions

1. What are competitive advantages of Russia as a country?
2. Except for the nature resources, what are others strengths of the country?
3. How does Russia position itself as a country? Eg: IT cluster/ nature resources
4. For Russia, is the energy a political tool?
5. Now Russia also aims at technology development, is it a strategic goal?
6. How many resources are there left in Russia (current estimates)
7. What percentage of GDP from Russian exports goes towards infrastructure and development? Where is it invested?
8. What does the Russian federal government spend money on? What are the spending priorities?
9. Has there been any infrastructure and development in rural Russia? Has the life improved?
10. Why is Moscow one of the most expensive cities in the world?
11. Will Russia’s dependency on oil bring about the same collapse as occurred in Soviet Union?
12. Is there a free market system operating in Russia?
13. What is the degree of state control of business?
14. What is the corruption picture? What effects does corruption have on the development of countries in general and Russia in particular?
15. If there was no oil tomorrow, how could Russia compete?
16. What other promising sectors are developing in Russia? If any at all?
17. Besides oil, gas, army, what is the other big things for Russia?
18. How to the government spend the oil money?
19. What is the most important aspect of government spending? Education, Healthcare, aged population?
20. Will there be greater disparity between the wealthy and poor?