1. How can you characterize the economy of Russia in general?
2. What are top five priorities for Russian economy’s modernization?
3. What does the Russian government pay attention to in the sphere of energy resources?
4. How can you describe the nuclear energy sector of the Russian economy?
5. How is the country trying to become a full-fledged participant in the global Information Revolution?
6. What is the new Pharma 2020 programme about?
Task 2
Say whether the statements are true or false. If they are false correct them.
1. The economy of Russia has become more market-based and globally-integrated.
2. The President of the country has put great emphasis on the creation of high-tech industries and advanced technologies.
3. Ordering “strategic resources” like oil and gas to be put back under partial state control has been very good for business.
4. The Russian economy is dependent mainly on the raw materials.
5. Pharmaceuticals have always played the leading part in the economy of the country.
6. The so-called Russian Silicon Valley is situated in Scolkovo.
7. Russia is now the world’s biggest destination for outsourcing software.
8. The global technology corporations don’t want to open R&D centers in Russia.
9. The new Pharma 2020 programme will give local companies more preferences.
Task 3
Complete the sentences using the words from the text.
1. The service-oriented economies of other countries ……….. the Soviet state.
2. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the economy of Russia became ………….. and …………..
3. To boost growth and competitiveness the Russian economy needs active introduction of ….. ….
4. ………… ………….. has always played the leading part in the economy of the country.
5. ………. …………… has always been a trump card of Russia.
6. Russia is selling …….. ……….. for civil use through the USA.
7. A new high-tech …….. was created in the Moscow suburb of Skolkovo.
8. Some global technology corporations have opened their ….. and …… centers in Russia.
9. Nowadays it is very important for the country to produce its own …………
10. The country’s modernization campaign is about putting it on innovative ……… ………..
Focus on grammar
Task 1
Translate the word–combinations into English using the preposition “of” or a possessive case of the noun.
Экономика России, распад Советского Союза, введение инновационных технологий, президент страны, экспортер природного газа и нефти, начало восстановления экономики, несостоятельность экономики, альтернативные источники энергии, сфера модернизации, роль ядерной энергетики, производство радиофармпрепаратов, доля российских фирм на рынке, кампания по модернизации страны.
Task 2
Define the tense of the verbs in the sentences of the text.
Task 3
Find the examples of the passive voice in the text.
Make a correspondence passive sentence to the following ones.
1. Capitalism in other countries modernized agriculture and industry.
2. Russia provides nearly one third of European uranium needs.
3. The country sells diluted ex-military uranium.
4. The government has always supported the IT sector.
5. Some global technology corporations opened their R and D centers in Russia.
6. The new Pharma programme will give local companies more preferences.
Focus on writing
Task 1
Divide the text into logical parts. Find the topic sentence of each part. Make up the plan of the text.
Task 2
Define the main idea of the text and write down the supporting details.
Let’s Talk
Task 1
Comment on the words of D.A. Medvedev given in the epigraph.
Task 2
Discuss the following information about the Russian economy:
a) Fiscal and monetary policy in Russia has been very disciplined since the 1998 debt crisis.
b) One of the problems of the Russian economy is disproportional economic development of Russia’s own regions. While the huge capital region of Moscow is a bustling, affluent metropolis living on the cutting edge of technology with a per capita income rapidly approaching that of the leading Eurozone economies (the Moscow region contributes one-third of the country’s GDP while having only a tenth of its population), much of the country, especially its indigenous and rural communities in Asia, lags significantly behind.
c) For our nation, unlike the high-tech industrial nations in Western Europe, the agricultural sector involves a specific social structure. In the West, 4 per cent of the population is engaged in agriculture, while in Russia that figure is between 33 and 35 percent.
d) Lack of effective law enforcement in many areas of economic activity is a pressing issue in Russia.
e) While every country has had its fair share of wacky gadgets from air-conditioned shirts to a USB-connected coffee warmer, the government is getting concerned Russian innovators are missing a key point.
f) Russia became the first country to get a national top-level domain among countries that do not use the Roman alphabet.
Task 3
Give a one- or two-minute talk on each of the key issues of the Russian economy. Use the information from the text, the Internet and other supplementary sources.
Unit 2