MOSCOW, April 3 (AVN) - A scientific and practical conference dedicated to development of electronic industry in Russia was held in the Elektronika central R&D institute here on Tuesday, the Military News Agency learned.
Speeches were made by Nobel Prize winner Academician Zhores Alfyorov, representatives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, defence agencies, and enterprises under the Russian Control Systems Agency.
In the past five years, the Russian electronic industry has sunk into degradation compared with the world index and Russia may hang behind the leading industrial countries forever if radical measures are not taken in the coming years, Alfyorov told the Agency.
Alfyorov praised Putin's statement in his address to Russian parliament to the effect that Russia will not develop as a primary producing country, but will focus on knowledge intensive technologies and industries. In this context, a draft federal programme has been worked out and submitted to the government. It is called "Development of Electronic Technics in Russia for the Period of 2001-2006" and aims to win back Russia's leadership in a number of fields, including electronics.
According to Alfyorov, of great importance today are preservation and enhancement of the system that trains scientific workers. To this end the Ioffe Physico-technical Institute headed by himself set up an innovative scientific-educational centre to train future scientists from the first year to research laboratory. The institute plans to set up a boarding school for gifted schoolchildren in the North-western region with further expansion of geography.
Realisation of federal purpose-oriented programmes, such as "Development of Electronic Technics", "Establishment of Technical Communication Means, Television and Radio", "Use of GLONAS Global Navigation System" and others, will help improve situation with the Russian electronic industry in a number of spheres, Alfyorov said. This is expected to boost production volume by five times in 2001. Moreover, it could facilitate solution of the most important problem Russian electronic industry faces today, i.e. quickly establish scientific-technical and industrial potential in the area of the element base. Without it Russia will not be able to ensure its economic and military security and become leader in the international process of global electronisation of all spheres of human activity.