VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
"The present-day Russian economy is much stronger, and has greater stability. Its scale has changed cardinally, and we have sizeable reserves. So we can afford to address acute social issues, at any rate, and we are dealing with them."
"The corporate debt has reduced by a third as of today. Our companies have made sizeable debt payments in the preceding months, and rescheduled their debts to $174 billion without Government support. The state has no obligations on corporate debts."
“Today, too we cannot be wholly satisfied with the quality of our market and social institutions. But one thing is certain: The crisis has shown us that these institutions are functioning. They remain stable, displaying their ability to resist destructive trends.”
"Also, and we can all see this, the rouble has stabilised. There is a basis for suggesting that inflation will fall. This means that in coming months we will be able to count also on the fall of the Central Bank rates."
"However, we can be confident that Russia will overcome the crisis. It will certainly maintain its position as one of the world's biggest economies with a large reserve of development, powerful labor, and technological potential."
“We had to parry two blows at once. First, we had to deal with the financial crisis which caused the outflow of capital because Western economies faced liquidity shortages and took away their assets. Speculative capital also started leaving our market. Foreign crediting sources dwindled, too. Second, demand for our traditional export items and their prices plunged.”
"It is thus our duty to protect Russian manufacturers. We are doing it ever more actively, and we also protect Russian consumers, considering the high import prices. In this, the principles we proceed from should be simple enough for everyone to understand. We should merely support domestic agricultural development. We cannot cut off the domestic market from imports-or the prices of staple foodstuffs will skyrocket."
“We have to say that the crisis is not over yet and has not even peaked. The efforts by the Governments of the most developed global economies have not yet produced any tangible results. This means that this situation may persist for a long time.”
“We have promised that no matter how difficult it may get, we won't apply shock therapy. I believe that these measures have primarily helped the country to avoid a crisis shock.”
“True, we have made economic diversification our goal only recently. On the whole, I think we have taken the right road and are reaching our targets at a fairly good pace. We'll make it, I am sure. The global financial and economic crisis is helping us, in a sense, because it forces us to be more rational, implement new technologies (energy saving, for example), upgrade production and retrain the personnel. All that gives us hope that we will get out of the crisis more mature and with better development prospects.”
“The balanced and reasonable policy of the recent years has made the Russian economy completely different from what it was in 1998. That is why we can afford a fairly mild treatment of the rouble exchange rate and why can keep all the social policy commitments we made during the period of economic growth.”
“Today we must look at unproductive and ineffective spending and the actions we made in the comfortable conditions when petrodollars were plentiful and flowing in. Today, we must be more effective and economical. If we speak about such areas of our activity as energy-saving, it is clear that we are talking about high technologies. Clearly, our work in this area in the short term will make the Russian economy and the country as a whole more competitive.”
“Starting on December 1, federal public sector agencies will switch over to new remuneration forms aiming to provide better services to the population and incentives for the best doctors and teachers. Despite all the manifestations of the crisis, the wage fund for budget-dependent employees has swelled by 30%.”
“In all, the Government is set to implement 60 high-priority projects until 2012. We have selected project managers and stipulated specific deadlines and funding sources. First of all, this concerns reforms in the human resources sectors. I have repeatedly noted that current investment in education, healthcare and the social sector will become our competitive advantage tomorrow.”
“We hope that these measures will prove effective in 2009 and will help to prevent plunging standards of living and rising unemployment, and will facilitate the sustainable performance of the financial system and the industries.”
“In November, the Government approved a long-term national development programme until 2020. This implies that Russia must assert itself as a global leader in terms of economic development levels and key quality of life indices by the end of next decade. We are not going to scrap our plans. On the contrary, we have been working hard to implement them.”
“We have taken measures to maintain business activity in the economy, slashed taxes, and drafted measures to support the key sectors of the real economy, above all engineering, transport, defence enterprises, fuel and energy, construction, agriculture, retail trade, and small businesses. Of course, we know that the real economy has been pressured by high banking interest rates, which is exactly why we have drafted special measures to support individual sectors.”
“We have published a list of strategic enterprises recently, which will receive additional assistance if needed.<…> The Governmental Commission on Sustainable Development of the Russian Economy will monitor the operation of these strategic enterprises.”
“The Russian economy and social sphere will finish the year in the black despite negative dynamics in the fourth quarter. GDP is expected to grow 6%, and many other key socio-economic indicators will also be positive. In particular, growth in agriculture has been even higher than expected. The latest data show a 10% increase. Investments in the economy were also 10%, which is higher than we had expected. The average monthly wage will grow, despite the 13.5% inflation, by 10%-12% in real terms. Pensions have increased by a third.”
“I can tell you that the Central Bank and the Government have reserved huge funds, trillions of roubles, for the anti-crisis package, notably for maintaining banking liquidity and compensating huge income shortfalls. Even if we don't need to spend all of them, the scale of planned allocations points to our greatly increased possibilities. I must say, though, that the Government does not intend to use all of its reserves to fight the crisis regardless of the effect of such measures. The priority goal today is to increase the efficiency of budget spending and to maintain macroeconomic stability.”
