RUSSIA IN THE SYSTEM OF INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS* For many years, private businesses and the Russian authorities have pinned their main hopes on the energy-producing industries, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy. Domestic and foreign investments flowed here, and these industries were the focus of the government's attention, since they brought basic incomes to the treasury and allowed it to increase the Stabilization Fund. The political lexicon includes the characterization of Russia as a "great energy power". Vladimir Putin stated at the end of 2005 that turning our country into an "energy superpower" is a strategic task1. This was confirmed in 2006 at the G8 St. Petersburg Summit. Such a strategy is typical for a country that has large natural reserves of mineral resources, but significantly lags behind the world level of development of not only the manufacturing industry, but also agriculture. Such countries naturally use the comparative advantage that they have-liquid and gaseous fuels, metals and other mineral resources that are competitive in price and quality. With such a lopsided economy, Russia is destined to play the role of a fuel and raw materials appendage and vegetate on the sidelines of the global economy. After all, our "energy superpower" is second only to Mexico and Spain in terms of its share in world commodity exports (1.7%), and in terms of high-tech exports in 2005. It was three times behind the Philippines, 10 times behind Mexico, 13 times behind Malaysia and China2. The highest echelons of government finally started talking about the need to diversify the domestic economy, the development of high-tech industries, including nanotechnologies, and began to quickly engage in industrial modernization. Meanwhile, the global economy has long been transformed into a knowledge economy. And those countries that actively exchange medium - and high-tech goods and services flourish here. The share of these goods in world exports increased from 3 ... Read more