MOSCOW, February 27, /ITAR-TASS/. Russian Minister of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukayev has outlined sources of economic growth in Russia in 2014-2015.
“First, the role of consumer demand will stay in place,” he said in an interview with the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily published on Thursday. “We hope that real incomes of the population and retail trade will develop at the rates close the current ones, i.e. by about four percent. But more important, we hope for a considerable investment growth.”
“This year, we hope for an extra growth of four-percent and plan to reach a level of 5.6-6 percent in a span of three years. We plant to do that by means of creating better conditions for private capital and possibilities for businessmen. We shall focus on promoting partnership between the state and private businesses; the concession system, which guarantees investors access to public infrastructure; cost cutting mechanisms through quality regulation of natural monopolies’ tariffs; support to small and medium-sized businesses; support of non-raw materials exports; lifting infrastructure restrictions, primarily in the areas of transport and energy, which check economic growth, including by means of investments from the National Welfare Fund and from other sources. This is a set of instruments we are now using to achieve results,” he said.
When asked about what is planned to be done to promote Russia’s economic interests abroad, Ulyukayev said, “We have a programme of financial support of exports. The government has recently adopted a roadmap for the support of non-raw materials export. It provides for insurance coverage of export contracts, guarantees and rather big credit resources. We plan to focus on small and medium-sized businesses. Second, institutional backing, i.e. the formation of export support centres in Russian constituent regions that would offer information support and help reach new markets. On the other hand, we plan to reorganize out trade missions as centres for serving interests of Russian companies and regions. The third important component is the simplification of import and export procedures. Apart from that, we plan to use specific possibilities we have thanks to our membership in the World Trade Organization in order to lift barriers on the path of our exports.”
“Apart from it, now we are working on a strategy of the development of the agricultural sector. We are looking at how to use the possibilities of the World Trade Organization to enhance our export potential,” he added.