Krasnodar, 17 July – Yug Times. Eduard Kuznetsov, deputy of the regional Legislative Assembly, executive vice president of the Association of Employers of the Krasnodar region of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, comments on the recent governmental initiative.
Q.: Do you agree with the idea that the pension reform is maturing in Russia?
A.: Yes, and I would even say that it matured long ago. Now few would recall it, but the necessity of raising the pensionable age was considered by [then Prime Minister] Viktor Chernomyrdin’s Cabinet in the middle of the 1990s, when economists predicted that demography would be exerting a continuous negative effect upon the [national] pension system. But then the federal government lacked political will to take such an unpopular decision. And later, in the 2000s, the so-called ‘fat years’ began in Russia, and the issue was postponed - then the financial resources allowed it.
It was in 1932 when it was determined that women should retire at the age of 55, and men - at the age of 60. Then 3.4 working people maintained 1 pensioner. Now the figure is completely different. Different experts have different assessments, but most of them agree that presently 1.2 workers that officially pay all taxes and fees ‘feed’ 1 pensioner. At the same time, a considerable part of our employees work in ‘shadow’, so they do not pay money to the Pension Fund. The situation differs in the regions: somewhere it is better, somewhere it is worse. In Kuban, the number of employable population equals to 2.2 million, of which 630,000 work in ‘shadow’. It means that there are about 1.6 million employed people that pay taxes and fees.
The number of pensioners [in the Krasnodar region] is the same. It gives us the 1 to 1 ratio, which is a disaster. What consoles us is the fact that the reasons for this situation lie in the attractiveness of the Krasnodar region: pensioners from elsewhere are relocating to live in Kuban. And - it’s good economic figures of the region which are higher than the national average that help us out.
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