By Vestnik Kavkaza
The Russian economy has stagnated. The plan signed in early August by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is intended to increase the pace of its growth. The authorities plan to increase the availability of bank credit, to develop small and medium enterprises, to stimulate investment activity, to improve the business climate and to support the real sector of the economy.
The experts said the plan has its shortcomings. “My attitude to this program and its ability to stimulate growth is quite complex”, Yevgeni Nadorshin, Chief Economist of AFC "System", said. “Most measures, of course, will have no impact in 2013”. The expert is more optimistic about 2014, because “a decent portion of the measures in the program are still institutional measures that may affect the market”.
Nadorshin recalled that before in the vast majority of cases the refinancing concerned only large companies, “which now do not need credit money from Russian banks are not exactly the engine of the Russian economy at the moment. Therefore, the idea of supporting small and medium business is sound, and this should be done through mechanisms such as the simplification of bank lending, which is in different blocks, it is good, and I like it”.
Nevertheless, according to the expert, “small business is not much of either employment or the Russian GDP; its share in GDP is even lower than in employment. Therefore, by and large, the impact on GDP is very limited, even if it starts to work. From the point of view of the Central Bank on facilitating lending, mostly, these are unpretentious and small steps. They cannot essentially change the banks’ loans policy and the rates at which banks can issue these loans. Anyone who has had to put money on deposit can easily determine for itself that probably 6-8% rates do not seem very appropriate now, especially after seeing how the ruble is depreciated against the dollar for less than six months of 2013, since the end of February, when the depreciation of the national currency against the dollar began, in fact, talking about the trends of the year. Obviously, the more attractive rates are 10-12%, the same ones at which many private banks attract money. But it is surprising to expect that at 12% or even 10% for the year a bank will be willingly and gladly able to issue a mortgage at 12% with some profit for itself. A mortgage at 12% is, I mean, already extortionate interest if you try to stretch them at 10-30 years”.
So Chief Economist of AFC "System" urges not to indulge in illusions: “Committees, working groups, some small measures such as credit bureaus can be created and changed, it can improve the situation within 0.1%, which will not fundamentally change anything. Money in the near future is likely to remain expensive. And there is little that can be expected”.
The expert saw “pretty funny moments” in the measures of refinancing: “In particular, the completion of liquidity at the expense of the intervention of the Ministry of Finance in the foreign exchange market, I have never been a supporter of the decision. First, the Ministry of Finance has no institution with which it could intervene in the currency market. It will have to use someone else's infrastructure, in particular, the Central Bank. And secondly, there's no need for it, because, in principle, the Central Bank itself would be able to adjust its rules of intervention, if it sees the need to replenish bank liquidity through foreign exchange market to do that. That is, there is no need to invent some kind of crutch”.
Telling VK about the situation of Russian economy, Igor Moskalyov, Associate Professor of the International Institute of Public Service and Administration (RANHiGS) under the President of the Russian Federation, said: “The analysis of the current situation suggests that the rate of economic growth has been drastically reduced, it is close to zero, and there is some stagnation. At the same time, we are now giving estimates based on the first half of the year: There are more optimistic forecasts for the second half of the year. The dynamics can be positive, but we cannot say that it suits us in the current situation, because the assessments are worse than those that were predicted”.
Answering the question about the development of the non-oil sectors of the economy, Moskalyov said: “This direction, I think, cannot be solved by short-term solutions, it requires long-term programs. It is unlikely that we can now expect an instant effect. Therefore, if there are some prospects, the dynamic that we can predict till 2020 will be more positive. Today, the question of "miracles" of the economy, a certain "economic miracle" was raised. For our country, the development of the non-oil sector is the kind of "economic miracle" that needs to occur. But it's really a matter of policy to be decided within 50 years to be able to talk about the positive dynamics. So, I think, in this scale there is reason to hope for something making some effort. A scenario of inertia does not hold out rosy prospects”.
Commenting on the prospects for the development of the economy of the North Caucasus, the expert said that “it is known that there are positive trends in North Ossetia. I find it difficult to give precise quantitative estimates of growth. I think a lot will depend on the Russian economy as a whole”. Meanwhile, according to him, the Sochi Olympics can influence the development of the North Caucasus: “If we talk about the development of the North Caucasus, this particular region, of course, the huge investment that has been invested, could not help working positively. Another question is whether they will be strategically justified in general because it is a project on a pan-Russian scale. The experts said even today that there are some questions about how to fully use the potential that this project can bring, although for the North Caucasus this is definitely a positive thing”.
