MOSCOW, January 27 (Itar-Tass) —— The “Russian day” was held on Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos. It began with a round-table conference, devoted to the political, social and economic situation in Russia in 2012. Later Alexei Ulyukayev, first deputy president of the Russian Central Bank, told about the way Russia is getting prepared for the crisis. He said the Central Bank was not going to drop euros.
Foreign partners did not express concern over the political situation in Russia before the coming presidential elections, The Rossiiskaya Gazeta writes. Foreign business people criticize Russia for a high level of bureaucracy and corruption, for inefficient courts, but still they believe that Russia has good prospects of economic growth. Summing up the opinion of the Western business community, a participant in the Davos forum said that one can make investments in Russia, because it will develop better than Europe. Ulyukayev also made some encouraging statements about the Russian economic situation in the lobby of the forum. He said the Central Bank of Russia expected the 0.6-0.7 per cent growth of prices in January, which is “very good.” The coming of investments to Russia may be resumed in the first quarter of the current year.
Commenting on the future of Europe, Ulyukayev said that the disintegration of the euro zone could hardly be expected, but recession in the European industrial sector and the going down of the euro exchange rate are quite probable, The Komsomolskaya Pravda writes. At the same time, the Central Bank is not going to transfer its euro reserves to another currency. According to Ulyukayev, there is no reason for the Central Bank to reduce its interest rates, on which commercial banks borrow money from it. So, interest rates on credits for Russians will not go down either.
According to The Komsomolskaya Pravda, Ian Bremmer, head of the Eurasia Group consulting company, said that Russia did not deserve to be a member of BRICS (five countries with the highest development rate, which include, aside from Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa). In his opinion, the Russian economy is not effective enough, and corruption is running high. He believes Russia’s natural resources were of little help for it, because the country could not make the best of them. Nuriel Rubini, an economist, suggested that Indonesia should be included in BRICS, because it outdid Russia by the growth of GDP without making vociferous statements. The Indonesian GDP grew by 6.4 per cent in 2011, while the figure for Russia was 4.2 per cent.