According to a survey conducted by VTsIOM, most Russians do not doubt that the Russian government knows how to deal with the economic crisis. 55% of respondents believe that the Cabinet of Ministers has thought out a plan to get out of current situation. 32% have the opposite point of view. 49% of respondents believe that the government will manage to change the situation for the better. 23% of respondents are skeptical in this regard. And another 23% believe that the chances of success and failure are approximately equal. VTsIOM says that the country is getting through the current crisis much more successfully than in 2009. Unemployment rates are low, the population believes in the fundamental stability of the ruble and latently is preparing for a halt to rising prices, or even for them to fall.
Experts also believe that the Russian economy as a whole has managed to adjust to the shocks. As the chief of the economic department of the Energy and Finance Institute, Marcel Salikhov, believes, "external conditions are affecting the Russian economy, including the fact they are not very favorable. That is, in principle, the slowdown in growth is quite stable. And as the events of the beginning of 2016 showed, some purely global, sharp fluctuations and shocks not always understandable from the point of view of the economy are possible. That is, at the beginning of the year we experienced a strong fall on the world stock markets, the global financial markets, too, were in a state of financial stress. Now the situation has stabilized more or less, but it remains uncertain. There are great concerns about the future dynamics of the Chinese economy. Despite the rather unprecedented steps to mitigate the monetary policy pursued by today's leading central banks, in fact, there are negative rates in the eurozone and Japan. In the United States the expectations of a rise in interest rates were reduced. Anyway, that is a big enough incentive for global monetary policy, but the economy is reacting to it rather poorly. And in terms of our economy, it is also the kind of factor that influences, including us, at least, through trade channels."
"The prices for oil have grown more or less, that is, they stabilized at around $40 per barrel. But there is an equal distribution. Some say that we will see a further increase this year, others think that this increase was primarily due to the short-term factors of expectations and is not supported by the changes in the balance of the world oil market," he stressed.
He believes that the Russian economy as a whole has adapted to the shocks. "The rising inventories are an indirect indication that the imbalance on the oil market is maintained, respectively, there is a gap between the current supply and current demand, and this has a long-term, at least in the current term, negative impact on prices. These external factors are creating not very favorable conditions this year. At least, we do not have any kind of acceleration in the world economy that would affect the attractiveness of the Russian currency," he stated
"Our profits in the corporate sector showed high growth in the past year. That is, in principle, the company's profits grew due to the devaluation, so, respectively, ruble transactions decreased, while wages also fell, so all this makes it possible for the companies, in principle, to get a good profit in real terms, and, essentially, it was at record levels last year. At the same time, we see that investment fell by 8.4%. That is, this means that the companies receive profits, but they do not invest. In my opinion, this is disturbing in communication with some international investors, with enterprises, that our economic policy in recent years, in the past few years, despite some crisis situations, is still passive. We do not have any ideas about what to do with the economy at the government level, at the level of the government, it is necessary to deal with this issue, set some goals, and so on. In the early 2000s, the goal was to double GDP in 10 years. There was a clear goal. Now, in fact, economic policy is drifting somehow due to the consequence of certain market factors. Accordingly, it is necessary, in my opinion, first of all, to set a goal that the economy and the economic situation in the country is a kind of priority," the expert believes.
