Business in Russia is trusted more than government; and media are trusted less than either business or government. Respondents from Russia participated for the second time in the Edelman Trust Barometer survey. The results are not comforting for outward image of the Russian business. Both participants of the round table, where the results of the survey were represented, and respondents from Russia agreed that the main question was energy reserves of Russia.
Edelman carries out Trust Barometer research for already 9 years. Last year Russia was included in the survey for the first time; so today, we can already trace back some evolution. The main goal of the research is to determine the level of confidence in different social institutions, such as the government, media, business, NGOs, religion and different sources of information.
3500 opinion leaders from 18 countries took part in the survey. The so-called opinion elites are people of 35-64 years old, who have college education, top quartile income, and who are media and policy engaged.
In tote results 2008 corroborate that of the previous year, although there is a positive trend of the attitude towards Russian business in the West.
In Russia 42% of opinion leaders give credence to the business, but trust in government has increased from 32 in 2007 to 38 today. In other respects, the level of confidence to government and business in Russia is purely comparable with that in Europe.
But other institutions can’t be considered so successful. In Russia only 29% trust in NGOs; thus NGOs are trusted approximately so as religious institutions and media. At the same time NGO are the most trusted institution in Europe.
While discussing these results, analysts supposed that the reason for that was low level of media activity of non-government organizations, that is to say, they become known only when authorities decide to close them, as it was, for example, with Internews. NGOs can’t communicate with media and there are too few charismatic leaders in them.
Russian business abroad is trusted somewhat more than last year, but still significantly little. According to Vladimir Peredery, EVP of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, IPO of Russian companies and increase of transparency of Russian business help to improve the situation. And this is the case. But yet any corporative scandal in Russia develop into series of articles in foreign media, written both to order and ‘in all sincerity’, which tell about Russian mafia, criminal past of Russian tycoons and control of KGB under the business, etc.
The situation is also defined by the last annual list of Barron's Financial Weekly, which has included Sberbank (joint-stock commercial Savings Bank of the Russian Federation), Rosneft and Gazprom in the top 100 of the most respected and authoritative companies of the world, although Russian companies have taken only 98th, 99th and the 100th places correspondingly.
As for Gazprom. A level of confidence in it kept still extremely low. Although it is somewhat higher than was last year. In the Great Britain it increased in ten points (from 5% to 15%), that is strange, taking into account strained relations between Russia and the U.K. Probably, it can be explained by the fact that in 2006 a scandal, when Shell had been displaced from Sakhalin II project, was still fresh in the memory. The scandal in all its details was widely covered in Britain media, and the level of confidence in media in Britain is rather high.
Confidence in Gazprom dropped from 15 to 12 percentage in France, from 17% to 14% in Netherlands, from 7% to 6% in Swiss.
A TV-channel ‘Rossia’ is the most trustful source of information For Russians. Thus, it is not strange that the level of confidence in Gazprom in Russia is 65%. It is higher only in China (71% against 48 in 2006); to all appearances, the “Year of China” in Russia has been held not in vain.
Russian companies do their best to change their, now not quite favourable image, abroad. A year ago Gazprom promised to appropriate ten millions to improve its image abroad. ‘In a joint project of Russian and German business (construction of the North Stream pipeline - polit.ru) German ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder occupies a leading post. This is an index that government in Russia is quite open and carries on a dialogue with foreign partners’, argues Valery Kadokhov, representative of the North Ossetian parliament. However, according to one of participants of the round table, a ‘political constituent’ is very strong in the reputation of Gazprom. It should be reminded that the last year PR-campaign was aimed to detach the image of Kremlin from Gazprom.
Russian government also bothers about image of Russian companies. On Friday the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade approved the program of ‘improvement of investment image of Russia abroad’. The Ministry uses experience of other countries. Thus, Czechia spends on PR of the country $12-13 mln per year, the Great Britain appropriates $700 mln. Industrial development Agency in Ireland has managed to increase the amount of foreign investements from $1 bln to $25 bln. Similar agencies are created in 14 countries, in 8 they are financed exceptionally by the state. Let’s wait for results. It is obvious that transparency, full openness, conduct of business without prosecutors’ ‘examinations’ can help; PR-campaigns won’t harm also.
And some more about Russia’s image. Richard Edelman (son of the founder of the company) who carried out the presentation associated with the audience in the lobby some time before the round table. He listened to a long story of Valery Kadokhov who told how the Council of the Federation and the State Duma was formed. Then he asked the main question: whether there is oil in the North Ossetia. “No, God didn’t give it to us”, the senator seemed to be embarrassed. ‘But there is good wine’, stated Mr. Edelman.
