The Golden period passes:

On April 3, Vladimir Putin asked a message to the Federal Assembly. The president paid considerable attention to the economy. Mikhail Zadornov, deputy of the State Duma, shares his impressions of the heard.

In the center of the president’s speech, economic issues were the presentation of which were devoted to more than half of the message. Many other problems, in particular foreign policy, or did not receive lighting at all, or were raised minimally. Perhaps the President, who has been in power for more than a year, should have made a more global and strategic appeal to people.

But I, as a professional economist, satisfies that almost all urgent economic problems in the message are mentioned in one way or another. The main thing: the president was quite clearly sounded by the idea that economic growth was actually stopped, that this growth was largely conjunctural, that the threat of stagnation of our economy, which he defined as “rental”, is still preserved. The understanding that the “golden period” has passed and it is time to take on reforms is, of course, a plus. I also liked the fact that the further direction of the tax reform was clearly indicated. Since the Duma completes the work on the law on foreign exchange regulation, which involves the liberalization of a number of foreign economic operations, it was nice to hear from the president that he shared the approaches of the budget committee.

At the same time, a wide list of initiatives was announced, in the real implementation of which there is no great confidence. And from the point of view of the degree of readiness, a number of positions of the message raises questions. For example, it was said that administrative reform is necessary. But the same thing was said a year ago. As then it was not clear what it is, it is not clear now. This is just a beautiful slogan. The situation is exactly the same with land reform: the president offers to move gradually, step by step. But the Duma has already fully adopted the 17th chapter of the Civil Code, which gives every right to turn and pledge of land of non-agricultural use. What other steps in land reform is the president going to take?

The message said that external debt is a big problem that it is now necessary to take new loans only for investment goals. All this is good. But the position was not formulated, how to approach the debt problem at all - do we completely refuse to restructure the debt or is this option allowed? This is a question that will largely determine financial planning for the next 5-7 years, therefore, nevertheless, uncertainty is not suitable here. And the attitude to the IMF is absolutely incomprehensible. Putin said literally the following: the government will fulfill all the parameters of the program agreed with the IMF without its formal signing. It sounds anecdotal: if the government was really going to fulfill all the parameters of this program, why did they refuse it? And if you were not going, then what to do? In this situation, those who decided to refuse to sign the program with the IMF simply very poorly explained the motives for their decision.

The roll towards the economy in the message is not accidental. It seems to me that the president only spoke of what was worked out to one degree or another. Apparently, for the most part, the government has achievements, or at least in general form a formulated position. But most importantly, I think Putin perfectly understands that his popularity and the stability of the domestic political system as a whole are based on the growth of real incomes of the population in connection with the rise in the economy. The growth period ends, and if it is not stimulated through structural reforms, then the income will fall and the attitude of citizens to power, including the president, will deteriorate sharply. Hence the priority of the economy.

I do not think that after the message some radical economic changes or government permutations are expected. Whether the stated reforms will be really carried out or the case will be limited to traditional declarations - so, it seems to me, the main question that we ask ourselves and which now, after us, is asked by the whole country.