Vladimir Putin held a meeting on economic issues in the Kremlin yesterday with the participation of Prime Minister Medvedev, Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov, his assistant Belousov, Finance Minister Siluanov, Minister of Economic Development Ulyukayev, Chairman of the Accounts Chamber Golikova and head of the Central Bank Nabiullina. No other details of the meeting are reported. A month earlier, Dmitry Medvedev approved the Russian government's action plan aimed at ensuring sustainable socio-economic development of the Russian Federation in 2016. Despite the importance of operational crisis management, the implementation of structural measures, aimed at diversification of the economy and creation of conditions for achieving sustainable economic growth in the medium term, remains a key focus of the government's work.
The forecast of socio-economic development for 2016 suggests the preservation of current world conjuncture, high volatility in global energy prices and exchange rate fluctuations. Therefore, the plan also involves measures aimed at preventing irreversible crisis events in sectors of economy that have a significant effect on the development of related industries (automotive, residential construction, light industry) and are important in terms of food security and social stability (agriculture, medicines trafficking). For the structural adjustment of a model of economic development, it is planned to use the tools that improve the business environment and the regulatory environment, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, import substitution, and export of non-oil products.
Meanwhile, the head of the Center for Proactive Financial Planning, Macroeconomic Analysis and Finance of the Institute of Statistics and Financial Research of the Russian Ministry of Finance, Christine Shvandar, believes that the condition of the Russian economy is exacerbated by the problems of the world economy: "We see a slowdown of the economy of China. This is a planned slowdown for the current year and the next as well. The world’s commodity markets are important for us, it is known that they carry well-being for our economy, lets see what's going on with them. Now we see the most genuine blowing of a bubble on the commodity markets. The prices of virtually all commodities are moving down.
That is, no significant rise in prices is not expected. Moreover, another reinforcing negative factor is, of course, the state of stocks in the OECD countries. The large reserves are also a factor, which does not contribute to the expected increase in the prices of our most important export resource."
According to Shvandar, not only prices for oil and gas, but also for another Russian export product – precious metals (gold, platinum, palladium), as well as non-ferrous metals (aluminum, copper, nickel) – are moving down to the level of2004-2006. However, according to the economist, there should be no strong shocks to the Russian economy, although there is unlikely to be any improvement.
