Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to meet top business leaders in the Kremlin this week for the first time since he launched the invasion of Ukraine, according to people familiar with the preparations.
(Bloomberg) — Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to meet top business leaders in the Kremlin this week for the first time since he launched the invasion of Ukraine, according to people familiar with the preparations.
The March 16 gathering with the top members of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) comes as the government, struggling to cover rising spending as the war enters its second year, is stepping up pressure on companies to pay more in taxes. Last year’s meeting with the tycoons was scrapped amid the fighting.
In his address this year, Putin plans to focus on reviving economic growth and the greater responsibilities businesses face at present, the people said. The tycoons, meanwhile, hope to signal concerns about the rising role of the state in the economy and push for steps to liberalize the business environment, they said. Those include lifting criminal penalties for some economic crimes, including money laundering.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on Putin’s plans.
Facing a widening budget deficit as spending on the war grows, the government has pushed companies to pay as much as 300 billion rubles ($3.9 billion) in extra levies this year. A final decision on this issue isn’t expected at the Kremlin meeting, however, because of the complexity of calculating the payments, people familiar with the discussions said.
Where last year, many tycoons were worried that appearing publicly with Putin might make them targets of sanctions, most of the major RSPP board members now are subject to the restrictions.
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One member of the RSPP’s board, Alisher Usmanov, stepped down last year, citing his desire to retire and focus on philanthropy.
At the RSPP meetings, Putin typically gives a speech and then conducts a closed-door discussion.
Putin last month called on big business owners living abroad to tie their fates more directly to their home country.
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“Whenever leaders or owners of such businesses become dependent on governments that adopt policies that are unfriendly to Russia, this poses a great threat to us, a danger to our country,” Putin said in his state-of-the-nation address.
“It is time to see that in the West these people have always been and will always remain second class strangers who can be treated any way, and their money, connections and the acquired titles of counts, peers or mayors will not help at all,” he said. “They must understand that they are second-class people there.”
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