Online Information System - Russia Aims to Ease the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Market Entry Barrier into Northwestern Russia

Abstract

Finnish companies have a growing and keen interest in entering the changing and improving Northwestern Russian market. According to the World Bank’s rankings for the ease of doing business, Russia ranked at 92 out of 189. The country was however recognized as one of the 29 countries which had improved their rankings in 2012/13 according to reforms in at least 3 of the 10 measured topics. In addition to being ranked in the 50th percentile in the ease of doing business, the Russian business environment and culture must also be considered when deciding to enter a market sector abroad. In understanding the Russian business culture for example, as defined by Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, Russia is described as a culture of high power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and pragmatism meaning that the business culture includes the right personal contacts, bureaucratic business processes, and an orientation where the situation, context, and time have meaning for the outcome of the issue at hand. In other words, the culture and businesses thrive on the network of contacts, understanding the processes and systems, as well as on direct personal communication. In addition to the ease of doing business improving and the cultural differences, development projects in specific must go through the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process which has proven to be a market entry barrier into the Northwestern Russian region. It has been found that the EIA process and system in Russia is complex and hard to navigate, even by native developers. The issues of identifying the EIA best practices of the private sector in Northwestern Russia and thus easing the market entry barrier posed by the Russian EIA system and its process for Finnish as well as other international companies looking into entering the Northwestern Russian market are addressed with a toolkit. This toolkit is a free of charge; open, online information service – Russia (ISRussia) designed specifically from the gathered research, feedback, and needs assessment and analysis of Finland’s private sector and thus is specifically designed for the companies.