What Putin said at SPIEF: Russia’s economy is “restrained” but “moving forward”

Putin spoke at the SPIEF plenary session for about 45 minutes. The main narrative of his speech: the global system built around Western financial centers is collapsing, and Russia in this picture is one of the beneficiaries of the transition to multipolarity.

From the specific figures that Putin cited: over the past five years, the contribution of the BRICS countries to global GDP growth was 49%, the G7 - 18%. BRICS internal trade turnover has exceeded $1 trillion per year. Confidence in the dollar and euro has been undermined, including due to the withdrawal of Russian reserves, which Putin said had affected both currencies.

Putin described the Russian economy as “restrained” but stable - and cited a set of macro indicators:

— GDP grew by 1.3% in April;

— inflation at the end of the year is projected to be 5.2%;

— unemployment — 2.2%;

— real wages have increased by 30% over five years;

- public debt - 16.4% of GDP (and in the eurozone, Putin noted, 81.7%);

— the share of the ruble in export payments reached 65%.

From the instructions:

— the government will have to prepare national strategies for the development of autonomous systems and digital platforms;

— fix the turnover threshold under the simplified tax system at 20 million rubles;

— to ensure a “seamless transition” of business from small to large.

Putin also confirmed the upcoming move of large state-owned companies from Moscow to the regions, including Russian Railways. He also instructed to increase the attractiveness of the Russian flag for merchant ships.

A special emphasis in the speech was on technological sovereignty. Putin named artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and platform solutions as three key technologies of the future and warned that countries that do not create their own platforms will become the “digital periphery.” In nuclear energy, Russia, according to him, is already a leader - more than 80% of the world's nuclear power plant projects are built with the participation of Rosatom.