VOCABULARY NOTES. apprentice – ученик, практикант
apprentice – ученик, практикант internal combustion engine – двигатель внутреннего сгорания to collapse – рушиться, терпеть крах racing cars – гоночные машины nickname – прозвище purchasing power – покупательская способность average – средний society – общество
TEXT 2 By Peter Charow
Doing business in Russia, as anywhere in the world, is not for the faint-hearted. There are obvious problems with taxes – they are high and, what is worse, there is a lack of transparency and a lack of predictability. Trying to cope with the outdated Russian accounting system is miserable. Another huge issue concerns the protection of intellectual rights or, rather, the absence of such protection. Next, there is a problem of industrial standards, including the certification and licensing of imported and exported products. Of course, flourishing corruption is also an impediment to foreign investment. Everybody suffers from these circumstances in the current Russian business climate. Nobody is immune. Russia has a bad image as a target for investment. However, in spite of these obstacles, the international business community is growing in Russia. More and more companies come here to stay because they view the transition in Russia through the proper historical lens. These companies understand that the current problems will be worked out. The period of radical economic reforms started in January 1992. In many instances, reform started from scratch. On a historical scale, the pace of reform has been staggering, absolutely incredible. Yes, a lot of things have not been accomplished yet, but there are sheer physical limits on how much can be achieved in such a short period of time. After the Duma election of December 1993 there was much concern that the rise of Vladimir Zhirinovsky would bring an end to the reforms. But that Duma passed 268 pieces of legislation and developed an ability to work with other branches of government in a very positive manner. In fact, a good deal of legislation has been quite favorable to business. Two primary tasks – privatization and the freeing of prices – have been accomplished. Both are crucial cornerstones for laying the foundation of a market economy. The country has overcome a grave financial crisis of 1998. The process of reform is moving forward. You can go out on the streets of Moscow any day and watch the market being built up there. Moscow twelve years ago and today is beyond comparison. I don’t think there is any other city in the world that has more construction going on than Moscow does. This is a sound indication of business development. When you ask the people in the street whether they are better off or worse now than they were twelve years ago, you find the typical Russian saying: “ Oh, life is horrible, I don’t know how we’ll survive.” A typical conversation might sound like this: - Could we talk with you for a minute? You are wearing some very nice clothes. You buy imported clothes now, right? - Oh, yeah, we can buy imported clothes now… - Over there in your kitchen that’s a microwave oven… - Oh, yeah, we got that last year… - I see you have a new stereo and a personal computer all of a sudden. And I heard you went to Turkey on vacation this year… People don’t admit it, but they are better off. I understand that Moscow is not representative of all of Russia, but change must start some place. You plant the seed and it grows and it spreads and it spreads and it spreads. Maybe I am just the eternal optimist, but I really think the process of market reform is happening here. You see a middle class emerging in Moscow which never existed in this country before. Consequently, the middle class has a stake in the continuation of the reform process. These things are hard to measure. They don’t make headlines in The New York Times, but they are going on and they are growing every day. To me, this is all extremely positive. 250 American corporations that are the members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia are all doing business here somehow. They are not getting shot by the mafia and they are not being pushed out of the country by the nationalists or the communists. They are all here doing business and a number of them are succeeding quite well. We must get this message across.
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