1998 and other horror stories

What Russian economists at the Gaidar forum showed

The Gaidarovsky Forum is one of the few sites on which both representatives of the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Central Bank, are gathering together, and economic experts that are not connected (at least now) with the authorities - for example, the head of the civil initiative committee Alexei Kudrin. In the context of falling oil prices to the level of $ 30 per barrel, they competed in who would make the forecast gloomy. At the same time, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev assured that the situation, although difficult, but good, and Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov generally said that the government did not make a single big mistake over the year. Maybe that's why Russian President Vladimir Putin, after the completion of the forum, said that he would not “change” anything in the economy.

Panic

This word was used by Deputy Minister of Finance Maxim Oreshkin. According to him, the Ministry of Finance share the point of view that the oil market is "in a state of panic." Oreshkin noted that there will be an increase in oil prices, but they are unlikely to increase more than $ 50 per barrel. At the same time, at a price of $ 40, the Russian economy is waiting for zero growth. The deputy minister added that due to the situation in the oil market in the Russian Federation, several separate mining projects will be closed in the coming months.

Raising taxes

The head of the Committee of Civil Initiatives and former Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin spoke about him. In his opinion, tax raising is inevitable, since the budget is closing with a shortage, and oil prices continue to fall. At the same time, Vladimir Putin repeatedly promised not to increase taxes on citizens until 2018 (indirect fees are constantly growing ). According to Kudrin, an alternative to taxes can be structural reforms, for example, raising the retirement age.

Losses

The Ministry of Economic Development calculated: in 2015, Russia lost $ 25 billion from European sanctions, Europe from Russian - 50 billion euros. Not a word was said about the damage to Russia from the antisanctions introduced by it, but a significant amount would have turned out - there is no doubt, for example, that the ban on the supply of products from Europe dispersed inflation. It is their cancellation that many economists (for example, Konstantin Sonin ) consider the best anti -crisis measure - of those who are able to accept Russia.

Reduction of budget expenditures (with the exception of social and defense)

The fact that the government intends to reduce budget expenditures by 10% became known on January 11 from the Reuters note, which referred to anonymous sources. At the Gaidar Forum, this idea was discussed in an explicit form. True, it turned out that the reduction will not affect many budget articles. “This is still such a figure of speech-10%. There are articles that are not subject to any reduction. These are mainly, of course, social articles of the budget, ”said Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov added that military spending will not be reduced.

At the same time, Alexei Kudrin believes that while maintaining current oil prices, the reduction by 10% is not enough - it will be needed more.

1998

Anton Siluanov scared the participants at the Gaidar forum. He recalled that in 1998 the budget itself adapt to new economic conditions through inflation. In the same way, this time can occur if the budget expenditures are not reduced in time and, therefore, not to give inflation to seriously grow. “Can we afford this now? Of course, this is wrong. This is the worst development option, ”said Siluanov.

Everything is complicated, but good

The Minister of Finance was objected by his chief-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. According to him, in Russia now there is no close to what was in 1998, and at all it is not necessary to succumb to the mood of the "economic decadence". “The main result of the last year was that our economy withstanding the lack of a previous powerful influx of oil and gas rent,” the premiere assured the audience.

He also found advantages in a decrease in the ruble course: “Now the conditions for reindustrialization of the country have even improved, Russia ceases to hurt the Dutch disease, in which excessively strong national currency makes its own industry products uncompetitive.” At the same time, Medvedev nevertheless admitted that the challenges of the Russian economy are now the most serious in a decade.

Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov claims that the government copes with them well. “Some criticize us, they believe that we are not acting tough enough within the framework of the budget rule. But [...] Probably, we are all like normal people in the current conditions, we make mistakes. But everything that characterized our activities in 2015 - the government did not make a single big mistake, ”said Shuvalov.

The materials "Interfax", Tassa, RBC and "Vedomosti" were used