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No economic growth in Russia despite ‘colossal reserve’

MOSCOW, December 17 (Itar-Tass) - The Kremlin is worried that the incentive packages enacted last winter have not produced any positive results yet, Russian presidential aide Andrey Belousov told journalists on Tuesday.

“A year ago, in the winter of 2013, we adopted a whole set of measures to speed up economic growth in the country,” he said. “We have not observed any economic growth yet.”

“The question is: What is happening?” he said, stressing that “this question concerns him a great deal”.

“Stagnation, as one well-known literary character would possibly say, starts with devastation in our heads,” Belousov said, using an allusion to a catch phrase coined by Russian 20th century classic Mikhail Bulgakov.

“There is no stagnation at all. There can be no stagnation at a time when there are reserves,” he stressed. “Stagnation occurs when there are no reserves at hand at all. If there some, than we are confronted not with stagnation, but failure to use the reserves properly.”

Belousov added that Russia has a “colossal reserve for economic development”.