Let's hear it for the days when industries and enterprises were the size of state ministries, and when the Kremlin knew exactly what orders to give to run them. A cheer for administrative methods!

Look around you – in oil, gas, aluminum, copper, nickel, platinum group metals, scrap, steel. What is happening is not simply a process of consolidation by one aspiring oligarch of another's assets, while government officials stand by or take kickbacks for their help. Nowadays, government policy, Kremlin policy, is to do nothing to stop the process of acquisition and whatever is necessary to see that the winner can be managed easily by a telephone call, decree or government order.

Take, for example, Russia's maritime transportation business. Apart from Vladimir Potanin, Russia's ports and maritime industry were largely ignored by the first generation of oligarchs during the Yeltsin decade. Russia's shipping slipped quickly offshore under foreign flags; the ports stagnated as local and regional gangs fought each other for dwindling cargoes and cash. The big profits of Russia's boom in resource exports and consumer imports went to the ports of the Baltic States and Finland.

Today, there is change in the sea air. The government has announced it will reverse a shoddy loan-for-shares deal at Novorossiisk Shipping, reclaiming management control for the state. Retrieving control of navigation at the ports led to this month's brief pilots' strike in St. Petersburg, but that was won by the government. Domestic shipyards are to benefit from state-subsidized domestic bank loans to encourage the revival of Russian shipbuilding. The ports themselves have become targets for acquisition, and also rivalry, between major corporations aiming to capture control of transport costs in their vertically integrated production schemes. The odious Yeltsin tax on transportation – corrupt customs clearance, corrupt customs banking – is slowly but surely being squeezed to death.

It will take time for the new state approach to prove itself in many of these schemes. But a quick look at St. Petersburg's port illustrates how administrative methods can work quite quickly, and well. Under management that Western transport investors have shunned for years, alleging incompetence and corruption, St. Petersburg port is now riding a wave of commercial success, propelled by direction from Moscow.

"Russian cargo for Russian ports" is the slogan of the government campaign that began a year ago. The campaign has ensured that the revival of imports to Russia will not be captured by Riga, Tallinn or the Finnish ports.

An immediately visible effect is that St. Petersburg – the largest port in Russia for dry-cargo and imports, and the gateway to Moscow – has posted a surge of 14 percent in overall cargo volume, year on year, as of July 31.

Port sources say metals transportation went up by 16 percent; containerized goods by 52 percent; refrigerated goods by 55 percent; coal and ore shipments by 46 percent; oil products by 11 percent; and general cargoes by 19 percent.

In comparison with other Russian ports, the growth at St. Petersburg has been impressive, although international forwarders say they continue to treat the port with caution.

Port officials claim part of the credit for investment in a new container terminal and better cargo handling methods. But no one denies that government-issued regulations have been the strongest reason for the change.

This began with a drive by the State Customs Committee to crack down on fraudulent clearance of poultry imports last year. The first move eliminated tariff differentials between chicken, turkey and vegetable-poultry combinations. "A lot of chicken was leaving the United States and landing as turkey," said Customs Committee Chairman Mikhail Vanin. Next came an order requiring poultry imports to be landed at Russian ports, blocking a lucrative smuggling route through the Baltic ports and into Moscow by truck.

Exporters of metals have also been restricted to using Russian ports, instead of Baltic and Ukrainian gateways. The criminalized scrap trade has been targeted for renovation through regulations that raise the capital requirements for processors and channel exports through a few gateways that are easier to check.

Meat importers in Moscow concede that the effect has been to raise the cost of corrupt payoffs for imports to within 10 percent of legal clearance. U.S. shippers say that volumes of poultry exports have risen, not only because of rising consumer demand, but also because more U.S. exporters have joined the now largely legal trade.

The growth of cargo volume moving through St. Petersburg is also the result of a switch in the market. As Moscow has intended, shippers are moving Russian cargo through St. Petersburg, instead of the non-Russian ports. For the first time in years, St. Petersburg port officials say they have already recaptured the majority of Russian cargoes from the Finnish ports, and they are now making a strong challenge to Riga and Tallinn.

Growth of container transport this year at St. Petersburg has been roughly six times that of the Baltic ports. This means that two-thirds of the containers now moving into or out of St. Petersburg are containers that have been switched from the Baltic ports. That's exactly the way the command economy should work.