SAINT PETERSBURG (AFP) — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday appointed a former Kremlin aide to head up a massive new state corporation, giving him even broader powers over Russia's economic landscape.
Igor Sechin, an influential deputy head of the Kremlin administration under Putin who was named deputy prime minister on Monday, is already the chairman of Russia's biggest oil company, state-controlled Rosneft.
In his new role as one of seven deputy prime ministers reporting to Putin, the 47-year-old Sechin will be overseeing the energy, industry and natural resources sectors in the world's biggest energy power.
Putin on Tuesday also named Sechin as head of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, a holding set up last year with bases on the Pacific, Baltic and Barents Sea coasts and estimated to be worth billions of dollars (euros).
Sechin has been Putin's right-hand man ever since the two worked together in Saint Petersburg City Hall in the early 1990s and has been credited with helping forge some of the Kremlin's most hardline policies.
Analysts say he played a major role in the legal campaign against Yukos, formerly Russia's biggest oil producer, and its CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is serving out a prison term in Siberia for fraud and tax evasion.
The dismantling of Yukos in a series of inquiries starting in 2003 largely benefited Rosneft, which bought up assets at below market price, and was seen as a watershed marking a new hardline era in Putin's eight-year presidency.
Sechin is also seen as part of a shadowy group known as the "siloviki," including current and former members of Russia's security services, which has become influential in Russian government under ex-KGB man Putin.
Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Tuesday that the new corporation under Sechin would focus on building ships for oil, gas and chemicals transport and would work together with private capital to build new shipyards.
After visiting a historic shipyard in Saint Petersburg on his first trip as prime minister, Putin said Russia was a major naval power but had "huge tasks" ahead in order to become competitive in shipbuilding on world markets.
"We're behind in productivity, in the management of labour and in innovation," Putin told a meeting of government ministers after viewing the Admiralty Shipyards, which were founded by Peter the Great in 1704.
Putin was appointed prime minister last week after eight years as president and is expected to retain strong authority in Russia's new power structure under his long-time protege President Dmitry Medvedev.
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