GORKI, June 19. /TASS/. National Projects will influence on domestic economy over time but measures should be taken to warm it up already this year, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday at a meeting on achievement of national development goals in the economic sphere and the housing sector.
"We essentially need extra measures to somewhat ‘warm up’ the economy already this year," the Prime Minister said. Growing investments within the scope of National Projects "will give its effect later on but we need to think also of developments taking place right now, this year," Medvedev noted.
He noted that by the end of last year, Russia's GDP grew by a little more than 2% and in the beginning of this year, the dynamics had become worse.
"Of course, there are objective reasons for this, some of them are instability of markets, slowdown of the global economy, prudence of investors, low consumer demand, sanctions and trade wars that are unfolding," said Medvedev.
"The financial and economic bloc of the government, naturally, must take these risks into account, but I want to emphasize - take into account but not to use them to justify why we don’t have the necessary changes," the Prime Minister noted. "Appropriate measures should be prepared to mitigate such risks," Medvedev said.
The Russian economy should achieve the growth rate above the world’s average and the country needs to secure its position among the top five largest economies of the globe, the Prime Minister said. Furthermore, non-resource export should grow, along with the significant increase in labor productivity and business activity. "Tasks are fairly challenging, especially considering recent developments," Medvedev added.