In the launch edition of our new magazine we showed that Russia
is a great place to do business – its economy is growing and the
burgeoning middle class is keen to spend money. While the economic
arguments are obvious, many foreign firms are wary of doing business in
a country they still see as the “Wild East.” The Russian government is keen
to dispel these fears and in our special focus on legal affairs and corporate
governance (pages 12 to 16) we show how Russia is changing.
A leading advocate of the transformation in Russian business
practices is Alexander Branis, a Moscow financier, who argues on pages
17 to 19 that Western investors have for too long ignored the
potential of new Russian companies. The ambitious young businessmen
and women at the helm of these “upstart” companies, as Branis calls them,
are keen to ensure that they are run in an ethical and transparent way and
do not want to jeopardise their growth by engaging in practices that
might alienate foreign investors.