Contents tagged with Economy of Russia

  • Kudrin: Russia faces the same problems from the perestroika period of the USSR

    At the closing session of the All-Russia civil forum, the head of the Civil Initiatives Committee and the former minister of finance, Alexei Kudrin, compared the situation in modern Russia with the later period of development of the Soviet Union. According to him, Russia now faces the same risks of decentralization and regionalization of the country, Radio Svoboda reports.

    “The USSR collapsed not because of the weak army or the weak committee for state security. It collapsed because of an …

  • Medvedev admits that sanctions have negatively affected Russia's economy

    The Prime Minister of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, stated in an interview with First Channel that sanctions and external pressure have affected the Russian economy. According to Medvedev, economic growth depends on many internal and external conditions. The Russian Prime Minister said that a very serious slowdown of economic growth has been observed all over the world.

    “We understand the conditions under which our economy is developing. Unfortunately, it was cut off from foreign sources of funding …

  • Russian Finance Ministry: National Wealth Fund will be exhausted by the end of 2019

    The National Wealth Fund (NWF) will be reduced to 500 billion rubles by the end of 2019, the Russian Minister of Finance, Anton Siluanov, stated at the Sochi-2016 forum,” TASS reported.

    “The total of all reserves, the NWF and the Reserve Fund, will only contain 500 billion rubles at the end of the three-year plan. These 500 billion rubles will remain in the NWF,” the Minister said.

    He also noted that it is necessary to be careful with NWF spending on new projects.

    “At a time when we are …

  • Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Service says the state controls 70% of the Russian economy

    There has been a state-monopolistic capitalism in Russia, according to a report by the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, as reported by Vedomosti on 29 September. The distribution of government and state-owned companies in the GDP has increased to 70% from 35% in 2015, the document reads. The FAS notes an increased number of regional and municipal unitary enterprises which are the main enemies of competition in local markets.

    The State is not going to abandon corporate control and wants to …

  • Medvedev: Russia's economy will undergo a 'far-reaching renewal' in the coming years

    Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev published an article entitled “New dynamics in Russia’s social and economical development” for the journal Economic Issues, in which he analyzed the current economic politics of Russia.

    In the coming years the Russian economy will undergo “a far-reaching renewal,” provoked by the world’s “challenges and changes,” Medvedev wrote.

    “We will have to establish a new form of development that is able to provide our country an important place in the modern world. …

  • Source close to the Russian Finance Ministry says the monetary reserve fund will be exhausted by the end of the year

    A source close to the Ministry of Finance told Russian TASS news agency that the monetary reserve fund could be dried up by next year.

    “The Reserve Fund of the Russian Federation can be spent as early as this year. There will be some money for the next year but these funds will be spent if privatization doesn’t occur as planned,” the source said.

    According to the expert, it is likely that the Reserve Fund will be fully exhausted in early 2017.

    A representative of the agency also fears that …

  • Russian Finance Ministry calls for reducing military expenditures

    The Russian Government will have to reduce military expenditures by 6% due to a reduction in revenues of the State Budget over the next three years. As reported by Vedomosti citing its own sources in the Federal Government, 1% of the savings will be reallocated for priority programs and projects under "National Defense," which in 2016 is expected to spend 3,157 trillion rubles.

    At the same time, according to Ministry of Finance estimates, the reduction in spending will allow them to save about …

  • Russian budget estimated to sink to 20-year low by 2019

    The revenues of the Federal Budget of the Russian Federation will drop to a 20-year low in 2019. On Monday, September 5, 2016 the Russian daily Vedomosti made the announcement, quoting the forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, which projected that revenues will be reduced to 13.3% of the Gross Domestic Product for three years. The last time the actual figure was below forecast was in 1999.

    The Ministry predicted these results on the basis of oil priced at 4 …

  • French consulting group: Russia's income disparity is the largest in the world among major economies

    In Russia, almost two-thirds of the country’s wealth is in the hands of millionaires. This makes its economy the "most unfair" of all major world economies, according to experts at the French multinational management consulting corporation, Capgemini.

    The most unequal distribution of wealth of all the world's major economies is in Russia. This conclusion was reached in the World Wealth Report by the consulting company Capgemini, published on Wednesday, August 31, 2016. In the report, the …

  • Russia's economic forecast worsens slightly

    The Russian Ministry of Economic Development has revised its outlook on the reduction of the GDP for 2016. On the 30th of August, Vedomosti reported that the ministry expects that this index may grow from 0.2% to 0.6% at the end of the year.

    The ministry has estimated that the pace of economic decline in the country, compared to the same period of the previous year, has accelerated.

    For this year, Russian economists have forecasted a slight increase of the average oil prices, from $40 to $41 …