MOSCOW, May 25. /TASS/. In Russia, there has been a steady trend toward improvement of GDP indicators and the task now is to keep it, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with representatives of French business circles.
He mentioned the problem of decline in Russia’s GDP in 2015.
"In the first quarter of this year, the reduction is still there, but it is twice less than last year (in the same period). That is a trend towards improvement of macroeconomic indicators, including GDP has been a steady and our task is to keep all this in the near future," Putin said.
He added that at the same time Russia has one of the lowest levels of public debt which is about 12% while the level of foreign currency reserves is growing.
According to him, the volume of Russia’s gold and foreign currency reserves has increased.
"As of May 1 of the current year, the reserves totaled $391.5 bln." "Nevertheless, our goal is not to just fill up state coffers with reserves, but to create favorable conditions for working on the Russian market," Putin said.
He noted that he recently discussed these issues at the meeting (the Economic Council session) with the representatives of government, business, regions, etc.
According to the Russian Central Bank, Russia’s reserves grew by $1.8 bln in the week of April 29 - May 6 to $391.9 bln.
Russia’s international reserves increased by $4.5 bln in April, month on month, to $391.5 bln.
Russia’s international reserves are highly liquid foreign assets managed by the Central Bank of Russia. They comprise foreign currency, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), a reserve position in the International Monetary Fund and monetary gold.