MOSCOW, January 29, 2008 Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents information on how Russian entrepreneurs estimate the country's vector of general political development and political activity of the authorities and social organizations; to what extent entrepreneurs think that federal government's politics meets the interests of business.

Russian business community on the whole supports the line of policy pursued in Russia nowadays. The relative majority of respondents (43%) assume that the political situation in Russia is developing in the right direction. A considerably less numerous portion of respondents adhere to the opposite viewpoint (24%). 28% only partially approve of the line of policy taken.

At the same time, 29% of respondents tend to think that the efforts of the federal authorities meet the interests of business in the country, whereas 36% do not agree with them, another 30% suppose that the activity exercised by the government only partially meets the business community's expectation, and it partially does not.

Entrepreneurs provide a rather positive estimation of the work of the majority of social institutions. President of the Russian Federation (his average score totals 5.38 out of 7), the government (4.26), the army (4.09) and... the business itself (4.16) all belong to the zone of approval. The activities conducted by regional authorities received nearly equal shares of positive and negative estimations (3.97). All the rest of state and social institutions find themselves in the zone of disapproval. The activities of political parties (2.59), law enforcement agencies (3.25) and trade unions (3.06) obtained the worse estimations. The level of approval for the work of civil society institutions as rated by entrepreneurs is not too high either: non-commercial organizations received 3.55 and mass media 3.42.

Every second Russian businessmen (47%) is interested in politics, every forth (27%) is not interested in it. Another 24% of respondents show only partial interest in the topic. Over a half of entrepreneurs take an active part in the elections of different levels. Just as for the majority of Russians, businessmen consider presidential elections to be the most important: 80% of entrepreneurs identify that they always participate in them, whereas a significantly smaller share of respondents takes part in the State Duma elections, elections at the regional and local levels (57-62%).

What does business want from the state? First of all, keeping the line of policy, stability and order (32%). Businessmen tend to have fewer expectations as to changes that have to do with them (creating favourable conditions for business development (15%), development of industry and agriculture (10%)) or with social protection of the population (active social policy (11%), an increase in the level of the nation's welfare (8%)). Entrepreneurs also express wishes that they have in respect to the political forces that will come to power after the elections 2007-2008, but still less often, that being to struggle against corruption and bureaucracy (6%), to enter into an open dialog with the business (3%), to comply with the democratic principles (2%). Besides, part of businessmen wishes a revival of the strong and powerful state (11%).

The survey of 1200 Russian businessmen (owners and top-managers of private companies) was carried out in September - October 2007 in 40 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The selection represents the enterprise community according to branch affiliation (based on three macro branches, i.e. the industry and construction; transport and communication; service and trade) and is proportional to their share in the national economy and the size of the enterprises (according to the number people employed).