„It looks like Kazakhstan could help Russia to overcome the crisis. Even this year Russia is going to copy the technical regulations in force in the neighbouring country in order to replace with them the outdate Soviet GOST-I regulations defining standards for industrial products and technologies. The point is that Kazakhstan has already adapted the EU technical standards to its reality – similar to that in Russia. Thereby the government has decided to copy them and compel companies to implement at last the modern technologies. It is just one of the theses including in the governmental anti-crisis programme for 2010.”

Runewsweek.ru

On the background of the other major industrial countries, even 20 years after the collapse of the USSR Russia’s industry is in a very bad condition. The underdeveloped industry is one of the causes why the rate of unemployment still continues to grow, and GDP drops. Russian industrial enterprises produce nearly the same range of articles of similar quality as that in the 1970s, therefore they are unable to compete with the flow of import from China and Europe. Local products are of low quality and unattractive, but the main thing – they are much more expensive than the imported ones, thereby Russia’s citizens prefer foreign goods, disregarding the propaganda on television constantly stressing the necessity to purchase the homeland articles.