[LINK] "Russia's booming, but not its factories"

[rfmcdonald]

In Friday's The Globe and Mail, Jane Armstrong had an article examining the possibility that in Russia, labour shortages and other structural factors are undermining the country's long-term growth.

Today, Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods OJSC – a name the company's founders made up because it sounded foreign – is Russia's largest food manufacturer with annual sales for 2007 expected to exceed $2-billion, and more than 18,000 employees at 37 factories across the country and in former Soviet republics.

But Wimm-Bill-Dann's growth is now being hampered by another hurdle that is stalling Russia's economic development: a dearth of qualified senior and middle managers.

“We have to hire foreigners to run my plants,” Mr. Yaroslavski said in an interview at the company's Moscow head office.

He lures food executives from Europe and North America with high salaries and other perks such as free apartments, drivers and trips home.

With its rising exports and expansion into foreign markets, Wimm-Bill-Dann is a bright spot in Russia's otherwise bleak manufacturing landscape. But the company's inability to find top executives is one of a raft of persistent problems facing Russian entrepreneurs.

Russia's resurgent prosperity became the crowning achievement of President Vladimir Putin's eight-year presidency. But the economic recovery has been fuelled largely by record high prices for its vast oil and gas deposits.

[. . .]

Russian leaders have raised alarm about risks to the economy. Mr. Putin recently told a group of regional governors that the economy is “highly inefficient,” warning that low productivity and the failure to diversify from oil and gas exports could threaten the country's existence.

“We have only modernized the economy in a piecemeal way,” he said. “This will lead to increased dependence on the import of goods and technologies and a strengthening of our role as an energy annex to the global economy,” he said.

Corruption and bureaucratic red tape stifle entrepreneurs across the country, Mr. Putin said. Last month, president-elect Dmitry Medvedev expressed the same concerns.

Indeed, studies show Russia's manufacturing sector is stalled by a number of factors, ranging from poor transport routes to poorly trained workers and outdated equipment and machinery.

A recent World Bank study showed that Russian productivity lags behind Central and Eastern Europe, Brazil and South Africa. It was on par with China and India, but its labour costs were higher. Only 10 per cent of large and medium-sized Russian companies have exports of more than 20 per cent, the report said, and three-quarters of those were exporting to markets in former Soviet states.

It's worth noting Edward Hugh had warned earlier at A Fistful of Euros that Russia's economy might face demographic bottlenecks, with the added complication of the Dutch disease of high-priced commodity exports undermining domestic industries.

Question: Have Russophone readers read an similar discussions in Russian-language newsmedia?