Russian President Vladimir Putin said the economy grew 1.7% over the first 10 months of 2018, noting that the industrial output was growing at a quicker pace - 2.9%. Processing industries are growing at the level of 3.2%, capital investments increased by 4.1%, retail trade volumes - by 2.6%.
Putin also said that the growth of the population's real incomes had reached 0.5% in 10 months of 2018. "After a long break, a slight but still a positive trend of growth in the real disposable income of the population has been recorded. According to the latest data, it will amount to 0.5%. I hope that this tendency will last because the real wages are growing", the president said at his annual news conference.
In the first 10 months of 2018, the growth rate of real wages in Russia reached 7.4%, by the end of the year it is expected to stand at 6.9%, the Russian president added.
Putin also said that Russia's unemployment is coming down. "If last year it was at a historic minimum of 5.2%, this year it’s going to be even lower - 4.8%," he said. Russia's gold reserves up 7% to $464 billion, according to him.
Putin noted that the country needs a technological breakthrough. "We need a breakthrough, we should jump to a new technological paradigm. The nation has no future without it. It is essential to concentrate the available resources, to find and concentrate on the most important areas of development”.
"$308.2 bln are planned for national projects alone. $96.5 bln are in a separate fund for development of the infrastructure. Certainly, they should be concentrated on certain breakthrough documents. These development plans may have any names. Nevertheless, these were named "national projects." In any case, they are clearly set goals. It is impossible to reach the deliverable without setting the goal, irrespective of ‘envelopes’ to wrap these goals. That’s why twelve national projects were created, along with the infrastructure development plan," Putin added.
"We need to enter a new league of economies, not just in terms of scale... We need to enter a new league in terms of the quality of our economy, that's what our national goals are geared toward," the head of state concluded.
