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Fifth Gaidar forum to be held in Moscow on January 15-18

MOSCOW, January 13. /ITAR-TASS/. Ways of post-crisis development for Russia and other countries will dominate the Gaidar forum to be held in Moscow on January 15-18, Alexey Kudrin, Russia’s former finance minister and chief research worker of the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy (Gaidar Institute), told a news conference at Itar-Tass on Monday.

“We want to understand the main trends of global development; build a clear picture of what is going on in Russia, define the range of our internal problems and find mid-term and long-terms solutions,” Kudrin said. According to him, the delegates and organizers of the Gaidar forum realize that “the contours of a new post-crisis economic and social policy are going to be different.”

More than 3,000 delegates, including over 300 foreigners, have registered for the forum. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will deliver the main report on the opening day.

Russian vice-premiers, Igor Shuvalov and Olga Golodets; Russian Minister of Economic Development Alexey Ulyukayev and Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov will also attend the gathering.

Some prominent international delegates will include Angel Gurria, the Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); World Bank and IMF representatives and Sharan Burrow, the secretary of the International Confederation of Trade Unions.

Kudrin said the forum would discuss a new monetary and credit policy to be pursued by central banks after the unprecedented softening of monetary and credit rules in the crisis and post-crisis periods.

“Economic growth in new conditions is the second vital item on the agenda. Will the world be able to repeat the economic growth of the 1970s-1980s in the next few decades?” Kudrin asked.

Other topics for discussion will include Russia’s problems of economic growth, “our internal factors” and also when and how the country could get out of stagnation.

“Public wealth is the next issue. Will developed countries demonstrate a new social policy? Will developing countries like China and Russia repeat the previous experience of those countries or will they prefer to work out new models?” the former finance minister said.

Vladimir Mau, the rector of the Russian Academy of National Economy and State Service operating under the Russian president, said that the forum’s first day would be devoted to global macroeconomic problems; the second day - to various sectors of economy and politics; the third day will be dominated by social issues while the fourth day will be a youth day.

The Gaidar forum is the annual international scientific economic conference, which Russia will host for the fifth time in 2014. It will be called “Russia and the World: Sustainable Development”.