Opening address of editor-in-chief.

On March 1, 2018 President of Russia V.V. Putin in his annual address to the Federal Assembly said: “To move forward, to develop dynamically we must expand the space of freedom, strengthen the institutions of democracy, local government, structures of the civil society, courts and be a country open to the world”. However, Russia’s experience of the last quarter of the century shows that in fact, having opened to the world and strengthening democracy, we have only lost resources, dispersed and lost forces and almost lost “the will for daring labor”. The poor people are far away from daring work, they hardly survive with pasta and potatoes, the rich are bogged down in hedonism and consider “this country” only as a source of superprofits, and the power is wrapping the absence of a real working strategy and its own political will in beautiful verbal covers speaking about democracy, a free market and endless long-term and medium-term strategies and programs that have never been implemented. To practice the strategy of opening to the world, when the United States have already declared to all, in point of fact, a trade war, to put it mildly, is short-sighted. Yet no country has succeeded in creating or reviving industry without protecting its own producer. Is a new industrialization possible in such conditions and who can and should become its driving force?

The report examines positions and models of adapting the main Russian business groups (RBG) in 2018. The working hypotheses of scenario-based modeling were outlined in this report’s review, here the authors specify the set of basic variables (order parameters) for the USA (and the global economy in general) and Russia. Summarizing the self-destruction/demolition scenarios for the American and global financial system, the author comes to conclusion that business and the Russian state need to prepare for the worst “catastrophe” scenario, as in military sphere we must be prepared for attack with all the forces and means that the enemy has got. Collapse of the global financial system is actually an attack by all means and forces, especially in the context of “adequacy” of the Western elite to real threats and to the degree of responsibility that they have already demonstrated this year.

The article examines the macroeconomic results of 2017 and provides an analysis of problems related to overcoming risks and threats that hamper the acceleration of the development of various spheres of the economy. Comparisons are given of trends by the development of the Russian and world economies on the dynamics of gross domestic product (GDP) and other macroeconomic indicators. The forecasts of macroeconomic indicators for 2018–2019 are given.

Following up on development of microelectronics in our country, the topic raised in the previous “ES” issue, Valeri Valentinovich Ovchinnikov, Director of the Center for Global Expertise of the Global Industrial Center in the countries of Latin America, Europe and China, Doctor of Economic and Technical Sciences, Professor, in his conversation with Alexander Ageev concludes that there is the need for active state support of projects relating to artificial intelligence.

Successful development of our country is closely connected with the option of creating a digital economy in Russia. Herewith, one of the most important components of this process is creation of supporting infrastructure for the digital economy as a convergent aggregate of digital ecosystems based on “big data” technologies, quantum computers, new production methods and artificial intelligence. Development of the Russian economy requires effective state regulation, increased manageability based on introduction of digital platforms for the main sectors of economy. The article dwells on formation of strategic mechanisms for monitoring, planning and market regulation of the Russian economy on the basis of building an integrated system of electronic markets for commodity resources using electronic trading platforms (ETP). Integrating ETP for creation of a complex system of electronic markets for commodity resources, associated with digital management platforms for major industries, creates new opportunities for optimizing dynamic interaction and adaptive improvement of commodity management transactions chains for creating a common logic of management processes in different commodity and market spaces and at all levels of management in Russia (and EAEU), which form the demand for issuing support of economic activity and volumes of financial resources (assets), denominated in a particular currency of one of the states — members of the EAEU.

The article deals with the problems of the introduction of the digital economy in the defense industry, ensuring sustainable development and a significant increase in the efficiency of their production. Information technologies are the basis of automation of production processes and together with the formation of a single information space allow you to move to a new higher level of production management.

The article examines one of the possible areas of designing and manufacturing complex high-tech products through implementing the concept of creating a single digital industrial platform. Formation and development of the new digital economy paradigm in Russia is actively discussed at all levels of public administration, it contributes to global involvement of a large number of stakeholders, to emergence of new strategic decisions that are realized in various forms — from government programs to successful business models at the level of individual organizations. Materials of the article reflect the content and prospects of developing sectoral and inter-branch relations on the example of implementing the program for creation of a promising Frigate Ecojet wide-body short-range airplane.

We continue to get acquainted our readers with universal rules of success of the brilliant people of our times, whom the adviser to the RAS president Valery Petrovich Chichkanov has met thanks to his fate. Given verbal portraits of those whom he met on his way have been transformed into enlightening portraits-biographies.

Deputy Director of the Real Estate Department of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia Andrei Petrovich Berestyansky told the “ES” magazine about measures to improve the state cadastral valuation system, developed by the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia together with Rosreestr.