The office of business ombudsman may be introduced in Russia by the upcoming fall, a presidential aide said on Friday.
“The government and the Prosecutor General’s Office have been instructed to look into the matter of instituting a special post… of a business ombudsman,” Arkady Dvorkovich said reading out President Dmitry Medvedev’s instructions summing up an open government session on ways to encourage competition.
The outgoing president also ordered government officials to resign as board members of joint stock companies within the next three years, Dvorkovich said.
“Within the next three years, government officials on the boards of directors should be completely replaced – step by step, year by year,” Dvorkovich quoted the president as saying.
Last summer, the president ordered that state and government officials quit corporate boards as part of his plan to achieve 6-7 percent economic growth, and in response to investors’ concerns over companies’ independence.
