Russia is desperate to put the “R” back in the Brics. Its membership of the elite quartet was questioned last year when its economy shrank 8 per cent, while Brazil's contraction was barely noticeable and Indian and Chinese output powered ahead. Now Alexei Kudrin, the finance minister, is proposing that Russia should sell minority stakes in 10 state-controlled corporate jewels, including oil company Rosneft, VTB Bank, and the Russian Railways monopoly, totalling perhaps $29bn. It would be Russia's biggest asset sell-off since the botched loans-for-shares privatisations of the 1990s. The government, which may discuss the plan this week, should embrace it. But this time, it also needs to do it right.
俄羅斯正拼命將字母“R”重新放回到“Brics”（金磚四國）里面。去年，人們幾乎覺察不到巴西經濟的萎縮，中國和印度的產出則出現了強勁增長，而俄羅斯經濟則下滑了8%，不禁使人們開始質疑其是否夠得上“金磚四國”的資格。目前，俄羅斯財長阿列克謝?庫德林(Alexei Kudrin)提議，俄羅斯應出售十大國有控股企業的少數股權，其中包括俄羅斯石油公司(Rosneft)、VTB銀行(Bank VTB)、壟斷企業俄羅斯國有鐵路公司(Russian Railways)等等，這些股權總價值或許高達290億美元。這可能會成為上世紀90年代俄羅斯拙劣的“貸款換股權”私有化方案以來，規模最大的一次資產出售。本周可能會討論這一計劃的俄羅斯政府，應該采納這一提議。但這一次，它還需要正確地實施。