Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pledged today to free Russian businesses from the excess paperwork that burdens their operations, AP reported. Russia ranks a lowly 120th on a World Bank list of attractive business climates due to low transparency and impenetrable bureaucracy _ most of it left over from Soviet times. Putin said state agencies regulating business are inefficient. In an annual address to Russia's parliament, he pledged to lift restrictions for startups and to drop excessive controls. He highlighted various bureaucratic impediments to business _ such as a lengthy approval process for construction projects and the endless stream of health certificates that farmers need to sell their produce. «For every kilo of meat produced by a farmer there are often several kilos of paperwork to be collected,» Putin said. He said excessive paperwork has had deadly consequences, pointing to an accident at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant and a fire at a Perm nightclub last year, which claimed more than 200 lives combined. Both were blamed on official negligence. Putin said regulatory bodies were overloaded by paperwork and failed to function as they should. «The institution of oversight and control has lost its value,» he said. Since Soviet times, Russians have been accustomed to overbearing bureaucracy in almost every sphere of life, which officials often abuse to garner bribes. President Dmitry Medvedev has said fighting corruption would be a goal of his presidency, but little so far has been done. As prime minister, Putin reports on the domestic economy each year to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. He said the government planned to cut the 6 percent budget deficit in half by 2012, and said economic aftershocks from the global meltdown were still being felt even though Russia was officially out of recession. Putin also called for «a responsible economic policy» so that «we won't have to go around with cap in hand and lose economic and political independence.» -- SPA
