Analysts rank it up there along with Japan and Germany…
Experts from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development issued a report recently, and, during interviews by VOR, they gave their reasons for their conclusions. They told us that they based their findings on key economic indicators such as the volume of domestic and export orders of industrial products, material goods production, and business confidence. According to the latest figures, in August, the situation in Russia and Japan changed for the better, whilst in Germany it was unchanged. You can’t say the same concerning several other major countries. In China, Canada, Britain, France, Brazil, and Italy, the economy is still in doldrums, in a listless condition. The USA seems to have reached the point of recovery, but experts there now expect that it shall slow down too. Regarding the situation in the Russian economy, we could note that several factors provide growth. Of course, there’s oil. If, at the beginning of the year, the price forecast didn’t reach 60 dollars (1,799 Roubles 42.63 Euros 37.55 UK Pounds) per barrel, today, it’s 85 dollars (2,549 Roubles 60.39 Euros 53.19 UK Pounds) for Brent. One must observe that the implementation of anti-crisis measures have already borne fruit. In any case, analysts tell us that governmental intervention to stimulate the economy shall continue in the third and fourth quarters.
Pavel Medvedev, a member of the RF Gosduma Committee on Financial Markets, said, “A particular point worth mentioning is the revitalisation of non-petroleum-related industries, as well as growth in the banking sector. Alternative industries made a significant contribution to the economy. As they have their own resources, this makes them good credit risks. Consequently, in the next stage, the banks get involved. They’ll extend much more credit to the real estate sector than they do now. This gives us hope that next year’s growth will surpass this year’s figure”.
Another source of growth is consumer demand. If it fell sharply during the crisis, now, it’s beginning to recover gradually to its previous level. Russia differs from the majority of the world’s leading economies in its low unemployment rates. However, there are significant counterproductive systemic problems hindering economic growth. Mikhail Delyagin, Director of the Institute of Globalization Problems, said in a VOR interview, “There’s a high level of corruption, and monopolies still play a major role in the economy. Russia has a very serious problem with monopolies and corruption, this blocks economic activity as such. We really are now seeing a marked recovery. First, there was post-crisis growth, but now we have an immediate revival. We need to change the character of the state, it’s necessary to make improvements; you need to make sure that we fight monopolies and corruption”.
However, analysts note that the Russian government is meeting these challenges vigorously, by instituting a national strategy for combating corruption and establishing an Investigative Committee of Russia, which would report directly to the head of state. Steps are being taken to reduce the level of monopoly involvement in the economy and to reduce government intervention in economic life significantly. The Russian government is ready not just to sell its shares in major Russian companies, but also to relinquish its controlling interest in them.
13 October 2010
Maria Vesnovskaya
Voice of Russia World Service
http://rus.ruvr.ru/2010/10/13/25745128.html
Editor’s Note:
One of the constant refrains of the Americanists at SVS and in Stokoe’s comboxes is that Russians are enslaved stumblebums, whilst Americans are free, intelligent, and prosperous (“head and shoulders above the rest of the world”, one of these harebrained children wrote). Actually, the opposite is the case. The Russian unemployment rate never sunk as low as the American one did because the Russian government made it a priority to keep people working. Business obeyed… they know what VVP did to that slimer Khodorkovsky, so, they kept on staff. In addition, the Russian government doesn’t let business concerns “downsize” or “outsource”. When there was a mine disaster this year in the Kuzbass, management was told, directly, what compensation they were going to pay to the survivors’ families, and to do it tout suite. Greedy “biznessmen” are kept in line in Russia, as they should be. Is there corruption? Sure there is, no more than in the USA, and, probably, less so (American politicians are in thrall to the providers of boodle as they must pay out fantastic sums for TV time during election).
In short, Russia has weathered the storm better than the USA did. Reflect on the fact that most of America’s bullying around the world since the fall of the USSR was done on credit… America didn’t have the money… so, it borrowed it. Now, it’s the “morning after”, and the bill is being presented for payment. All of the Americanists (both secular and religious) should take note. We must protect the ordinary people as the Russians have done (at least, protect their jobs), or this country goes down the tubes. In 1959, a working man could support his family well on one pay packet. In 2009, after 28 years of neoliberal “deregulation”, two incomes are barely enough to make ends meet. I think that there’s been degeneration, and the GOP/Tea Party are the main culprits. Don’t forget that the spiritual forebears of the Tea Party were the racist thugs of the Southern Manifesto. “We reaffirm our reliance on the Constitution as the fundamental law of the land. We decry the Supreme Court’s encroachment on the rights reserved to the States and to the people, contrary to established law, and to the Constitution”. That’s identical to most Tea Party/GOP formulations… interesting, no?
You can have a centre-left etatist system, such as one sees in Russia, or an extremist right-wing neoliberal big capital system, as one sees in the USA. This present economic crisis showed which system is superior… and it’s NOT “Big Capital”. As a Russian friend told me, “We don’t have as much, and, certainly, there’s rich people, but we share it more equally than you do” (the gap between rich and poor in Russia is not as wide as it is in the USA (and the gap would widen further under a Tea Party oligarchy)). We can have more jobs or we can have bombs and UAVs… what do you want?
BMD
Voices from Russia 
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