Former Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the peak of the crisis in Russia is still ahead – the decline in GDP is continuing, the decline in investment and a weak ruble has hampered the purchase of new technologies and modernization of enterprises.
The head of the department of International Economic Organizations at the Center for Economic Research of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, Vyacheslav Holodkov, spoke about the reasons for this situation: "The neoliberal model of the economic development of our country has led to the fact that, unfortunately, our dependence on the export of oil, gas and raw materials in general, did not decrease in 90 years, but even increased. If you look at economic growth, a decline in economic growth has been observed since 2012. There was 4.5% GDP growth before 2013, in 2013 GDP growth was 1.3%, and this despite the extremely favorable external conditions, when the oil price surpassed $100 per barrel, however, the growth rate decreased sharply. Eventually, in 2015, now it is clear that there will be negative growth, a drop of 3.8, or 3.9%, last year there was growth of just 0.6%. Thus, a strong dependence on exports of oil, gas and raw materials negatively affects both the prospects of development of the Russian economy and the prospects for integration within the EAEC. "
Speaking about the prospects to get out of this situation, the expert said that there is a need to change the economic policy: ‘’A report of Glazev to the inter-commission members of the Security Commission of the Russian Federation, and in the eyes of this report quite clearly shows what steps you need to take. The first, the most simple that every economist should understand that in times of a crisis we should dramatically increase government spending, government support for the economy. At such times it is impossible to limit the budget deficit to 3.5% of GDP. Do you understand? Therefore, if we change the economic paradigm, Russia will succeed, it has a positive effect and, in general, on the processes of economic integration within the EAEC. Here is the main, fundamental approach, which should be the issue of economic integration. Everything else, like the foreign exchange rates, goes in second place, it all depends on the main economic paradigm. "
Holodkov cited the example of Kazakhstan: "The export of the Kazakh oil takes even larger share than in the export of Russia. We have a 75% share, together with metals, mineral products, and they have 85%. Their fall in exports in 2015 is more significant than in Russia. Nevertheless, the Russian GDP drop is probably 3.8-3.9%, while in Kazakhstan it has increased by 1.3%. Why? The inflation there is not the same and there is not such a difficult situation as we have. Because the government of Kazakhstan pursues more balanced, more prudent economic policies, which as a result has provided the country with a soft passage out of this crisis. "
