MOSCOW, September 07, /ITAR-TASS/. Despite negative impacts on Russia’s economy by domestic and external factors, the Russian government is determined to follow the country development course with minor adjustments, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with the Vedomosti newspaper to be published on Monday.
“Of course, the current conditions for the development of the economy, the country, for people are difficult,” he said. “As one of the country’s leaders, I have a feeling that we have been living in a situation of external shocks since 2008, but the situation had never been easy even before.”
The Russian economy, according to Medvedev, is impacted “not only by external shocks but also by structural disbalances.”
“We don’t change flags. Plans cannot be implemented overnight but programme documents remain the same. They are the country’s development programme till 2020, the president’s decrees of May 2012, the basic guidelines for the governnment’s activities till 2018, the approved state programmes,” he said, admitting however that “some nuances need to be adjusted.”
“We targeted much higher growth rates, now we proceed from economic growth of 0.5% this year, and slightly more - about one percent - next year,” the Russian prime minister said, adding that “it is not enough and is not very good.” However he noted that the global situation was no better, with the forecasted global GDP growth of about mere three percent, the European economy growth of about 0.9% and the United States’ economy growth of some two percent.
“So, we cannot say that the situation in other countries is much different from ours but for a few dynamically growing economies, such as China,” Medvedev noted.