Innovative economy needs business culture overhaul

Hi-tech projects are being pushed as part of Russia's economic diversification, but the head of the Russian Venture Company, Igor Agamirzyan, says Russia’s business culture needs to be overhauled.

IA: “The demand from the relation for the new technologies, like internet, like mobile phones, like positioning services, things like that, is huge. But the local economy doesn’t serve this need. And the real problem for the innovation development, is that there is no real demand from the businesses for their innovative services, from the large enterprises, for the innovative services. And for my viewpoint one of the reasons for that is the demand for the innovation in the business appears only in the competitive environment.”

RT: What could be the Russian way of innovative economy?

IA: “We need to position the country in the global environment. We need to position the areas which are the priorities. Different countries are positioning their self in different parts of this lifecycle of the products, right. The USA is present primarily in R&D and sales and marketing, and China covers a huge part of the production facilities worldwide. Real potential, real added value, for Russia may be on the early stages on the industrial research and licensing or exporting products on he global markets. Because it’s much marginable, it needs much skill population, and it is the zone of the competencies which are available in Russia.”

RT: What are the main obstacles on Russia’s way to innovative economy?

IA: “One of the problems which exist is that the intellectual property created by the public funds belongs to the state, and the state, frankly, isn’t able to use this intellectual property, and in many countries the author gets the rights for the intellectual property he created working for, and being funded by the state, himself. And that is one of the reasons for the great success.”