President Putin hits familiar themes in address to St. Petersburg Economic Forum

BOFIT Viikkokatsaus / BOFIT Weekly Review 2016/25

Among the priority themes of current economic policy, Putin stressed his vision of the Eurasian Economic Union as the driver of broad-based Eurasian integration. He noted also again the importance of import substitution policy and stated that the modernisation of Russian industry would be accelerated through legally requiring that from 2019 major manufacturers use only best-available technologies that meet the strictest environmental standards.

Most other themes of the speech were drawn from both of the main programmes for growth presented recently (see below). Putin stressed reducing the budget deficit and budget dependency on oil revenues. He set the long-term economic growth target of Russia to 4 % a year. This could be achieved, he noted, through e.g. increased labour productivity and a better business environment. These themes have been reiterated for several years now, indicating Russia’s leadership is well aware of the country’s economic problems but still lacks practical answers to deal with them. Putin announced that he was establishing a presidential council on strategic development and priority projects to make reforms more effective and seeing that major projects get implemented.

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