In another pragmatic move after its victory in the ‘five-day Caucasian war,’ where Russia outwitted the West and defiantly recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia, the Kremlin had high-profile meetings with local and global investors, where Russian leaders reaffirmed their commitment to a free-market economy and open investment opportunities. Launching the positive PR campaigns was President Dmitry Medvedev, who, during a Kremlin meeting with the titans of Russian businesses, said the government would vigorously defend Russian corporations abroad and deal ruthlessly with any attempts to discriminate against them on the global markets because the ‘defense of Russian citizens and their interests anywhere in the world is his government’s highest priority.’
The campaign was taken to the international arena on September 18, when Vladimir Putin met with foreign investors in Sochi. The list of the attendees, which included the CEOs of Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, Shell, Siemens, Mitsubishi, etc only a few weeks after the West threatened sanctioning Moscow over Georgia, confirmed the worthlessness of such punitive measures. This is because it would have been ‘economically suicidal’ for these CEOs and other 8,000 business executives from over 40 countries that later gathered at the Sochi Investment Forum featuring 500 investment projects totaling about $20bln. to desist from investing into Russia’s growing economy on purely political grounds. More so, as the alternatives presently opened to investors in the Western economies, currently passing through the worst crisis since the Great Depression, would have been to repeat the fates of the likes of Lehman Brothers.
Highlighting the competitive advantages of the Russian investment climate, Putin reminded the global CEOs that Russia is currently the world’s seventh largest economy in terms GDP, third in terms of gold and forex reserves, and that, despite the current global financial crisis, still remains on course to doubling its GDP by 2009-10, a unique feat, given the fact that most countries are currently engaged in survival struggles, and not about doubling their GDPs. Putin also assured the global investors that the Kremlin will never use politically motivated decisions in its ‘economic relationships’ with foreign investors — a brilliant move aimed at quelling the speculations being fueled by anti-Russia hawks in the West to stoke fears that Moscow would use its vast energy resources as politico-economical weapon against partners.
Referring to the unprecedented investment attractiveness of the Russian economy, fast becoming a default destination for ‘nervous investors’ capital’ from other countries, Putin noted that the volume of FDIs in the first half of 2008 stood at $46.5bln. This is why Putin’s statement that the question facing foreign investors is not whether or not to invest in Russia, but how to invest so as to maximize their yields, assumes a totally different intonation. For one, it implies that the incessant threats of politico-economical isolation by London and Washington are empty sounds to the Kremlin.
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