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Russia needs to boost small businesses in 2014, Medvedev tells Gaidar Forum ― RT Business

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told investors that Russia, as the world’s ninth-largest economy, faces an array of “critical masses” to spur growth this year after a set of disappointing figures in 2013, a year of broken illusions for Russia. GDP added just 1.3 percent, while most analysts expected an average growth of 4 percent.

“Our main task is to change the quality of the Russian business environment, or in other words, make it comfortable and competitive,” said Medvedev, Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012. Promising entrepreneurship will be rewarded, he added.

"Three basic conditions exist for shaping a real competitive environment,” Medvedev said. “These are reducing excessive state intervention, developing an anti-monopoly policy, and support for small and medium-sized business."