Putin calms local and foreign investors at the VTB Capital investment forum
Addressing an investment forum, titled, ‘Russia Calling,’ which was organized in Moscow by VTB Capital, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin assured both local and foreign investors of the stability of the Russian economy, as he detailed the short- and medium-term strategies as well as long-term measures adopted by the state not only to combat the current crisis, but also aimed at lifting the country into an absolutely new level of efficiency of economic performance in the postcrisis period.
Speaking on the current crisis, Putin noted that his government was forced to undertake full responsibility and risks peculiar to businesses, make decisions and execute other functions in some of the nation’s corporations with ineffective managements that were worst hit by the negative fallouts from the recession. “Besides, some business representatives even tried to be as close as possible to government funding, absolutely forgetting about economic freedoms and principles of free market economy,” he added. “Despite all these negative trends, there were neither mass-scale nationalizations nor sliding into bizarre forms of stringent administrative regulations. Free movement of capital and convertibility of ruble have remained intact.”
Speaking on the stability of the Russian economy at the current stage of the ongoing crisis, the prime minister noted that the government has enough resources and means for protecting the financial system against new currency fluctuations, destabilization of the national currency and safeguarding the national economy as a whole. As one of the reasons for this overt optimistic view, the prime minister citied the volume of the nation’s gold and foreign currency reserves, which currently stands at over $400bln.
Talking about the end of the crisis, the prime minister calls the rampant proposals of downsizing the global anticrisis programs and stimulus economic packages by some countries absolutely premature. “Today, the Russian government is currently preparing an exit strategy program from the current crisis that envisages systematic and carefully dosed reduction of the current level of the state intervention in economy via the use of traditional market tools, including privatizations of state stakes in major companies,” he added. “All these measures represent a convincing signal for investors. This is why I need to reiterate once again that there will be no return to the past, and that Russia, going forward, intents to remain a liberal, free-market economy.”
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