Russia, ever since the downfall of its regal Soviet Empire, has been seeking ways to recover the lost pride and at last, it has found its mentor. It’s the high-tech Singapore! Don’t get amazed and skeptical of this scribe’s mental state. The same has been said by Dmitry Medvedev, current President of Russia, even. President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday said Russia ought to learn from Singapore’s “great example” of economic transformation at the same time as he made the first ever visit by a Russian head of state to the island.

Medvedev was accompanied by an exalted Russian business delegation and stated emphatically (it appeared), Singaporean example was imperative for Russia. Perhaps there are some substances in this assertion also as he battles to develop its oil exports-based economy into a more diversified system. The visit came days after Medvedev gave the address adumbrating a plan to renovate the Russian economy. As per analysts, the speech comprised a broad vision but a lack of concrete proposals.

He said in Singapore that Russia was seeking “a change from a hydrocarbon-based model of the Russian economy to a new innovative model based on the wide use of high technologies to make it highly competitive.” “In this respect, the experience of Singapore is very interesting for us,” he said, hailing the “great example” the country had set in implementing a rapid transformation of the economy.

This is not all. While speaking at a roundtable with business leaders, Medvedev said one of the most important results of his trip was the formation of an inter-governmental commission on the economy and science and technology. The Russian President also had a formal meeting with post-colonial Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew, the person credited with engineering the country’s rapid growth since independence.

We must render some inputs too. Recent studies state that Russia has overcome Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest oil producer and remains the world’s biggest natural gas producer. Nevertheless its failure to diversify the economy hit hard when the economic crisis struck and oil prices plunged.

Russia, without a shred of doubt, is desirous to get back its erstwhile global dominance.