“It’s kind of boring here.” The traditional macroeconomic session was held at SPIEF - without Nabiullina and pressing questions about the situation in the economy

At SPIEF on Thursday morning, the traditional main session on economics took place - one of the few forum events that is still worth following. This year, its traditional list of participants has been reduced: on the eve of the event it became known that the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, would not participate in the discussion. The regulator's press service reported that she was on sick leave.

What happened

As usual, the session was moderated by the head of the State Duma Budget Committee, Andrei Makarov. Ministers of Finance and Economics Anton Siluanov and Maxim Reshetnikov took the blame for the economy, and with them - Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Maxim Oreshkin.

The theme of the panel was stated as: “How to return to a trajectory of sustainable economic growth in the face of global uncertainty.”

▪️Oreshkin said that in conditions when the largest economies, like Germany, are in a fever, the opportunities for the Russian economy are becoming greater and greater - against the backdrop of the growth of the economies of China, India and African countries.

▪️Siluanov boasted about low levels of external debt and budget deficit relative to GDP and called for protecting Russia’s “financial sovereignty.”

▪️Reshetnikov urged not to take too seriously the catastrophic drop in investment in fixed assets by 14.3% in the first quarter, and also promised the speedy involvement of the “young and older” population in the labor market.

Makarov, who traditionally plays the role of a sarcastic compere at a macro session, did not torture the participants with pointed questions this year. If in past years he asked directly about the nationalization of businesses, tax increases and about Russia’s low places in various international rankings, then this year there was no trace of his courage left. “Do you have less faith in our economy than our enemies?” — he asked Reshetnikov about the difference in forecasts for Russian GDP growth between the Ministry of Energy (+0.4%) and the European Commission (+1.3%). “We rely on numbers,” he replied.

The discussion participants did not focus on structural problems in the Russian economy, which risks showing the worst growth rates since 2023. Last year they at least argued about whether there was a recession in Russia or not, but this year they decided to ignore the problem of a strong drop in production rates.

Somehow our session is going through a boring session. “Our audience is already falling asleep,” Oreshkin noted towards the end. “Either we don’t have enough Elvira Sakhipzadovna, and this is affecting us, or compared to what we had a year or two ago, when we had great achievements, we don’t have much to be proud of?”

What we didn't talk about

The topic of tax increases was mentioned only briefly at the session - and then in a positive way. “Despite two packages of tax changes, taxes are rising, and there were risks that we could go too far somewhere. No, we didn’t go too far,” Siluanov assured.

The participants also did not forget about institutions, a sore subject that comes up at the macro-session from year to year - as the institutions themselves degrade.

“There is something more important than the economic growth model. These are institutions. If there are the right institutions, then the model will be built correctly,” Reshetnikov said.

He named, among other things, property rights and investor rights as institutions. He did not talk about how the state continues to take away large businesses in Russia today.