Will Russians save up money for their pensions?

Russian Finance Ministry has urged citizens, whose salary is above 40,000-50,000 rubles, to save money up for their pensions themselves. "Those people who receive large wages, not only in the amount of 100,000 (rubles), but starting from 40,000-50,000 should save up money themselves," Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev said.

The Deputy Minister noted that the citizens, whose income is less than 40,000, will receive  a 40%.replacement rate from the state. "Not a single state system can pay off the 40% replacement rate to a person who received 100,000 during his life,'' Tass cites him as saying.

Vice-vhancellor at RANHiGS, Alexander Safonov, noted that the statement that the citizens will have to save money for their pensions is a continuation of discussions between the financial and economic blocs because Ministry of Labour is still responsible for the pension reform, not the Ministry of Finance.

"In this case, the statement by the deputy of the Minister of Finance should be considered as an attempt to make the debate more acute. As for the proposal to use the Australian or New Zealand system, so it is necessary to pay attention to the following fact. Above all, the system was created in entirely different conditions, not like in Russia. The commitment to non-market period of economic development has never existed in Australia and New Zealand in comparison with Russia where pensioners worked in the Soviet Union. There was a system of personalized accounting that originally depended on wages. But we have a mixed system," the expert said.

Deputy director of the Social Analysis and Forecasting Institute at RANHiG, Yuri Gorlin, said that Russia's pension insurance system cannot provide the 40% level of pensions in accordance with wages of those people whose income is 40,000-50,000 rubles and higher.

"It is an objective reality in today's conditions when a large number of employees don't pay insurance premiums in full measure, i.e. people receive either the whole, or a large part of their wages without paying contributions. In addition, the ratio between those who pay fees, and those who receive pensions, does not allow to provide a reasonable level of pensions,'' he explained.

According to head of the laboratory studies of pension systems and actuarial prediction of the social sphere of the Institute of Social Analysis and Forecasting at RANHiGS, Elena Grishina, the Ministry of Finance means some basic state pension, which is given to people with extremely low income.

"As for other things, the pension system is largely based on the funded component, which people save up themselves during their lives. In this case, the state has no commitments. This model exists. But it is difficult to say how successful it can be implemented in Russia because now we use a quite different model. Probably, it is difficult to change it at once,'' the analyst expressed her opinion.