MOSCOW, June 3. /TASS/. The Russian economy has entered a cooldown period after high growth rates during the past two years, Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov said during the Open Dialogue in the Federation Council, the upper house of the national legislative assembly.
"The economy has now entered the cooldown period after high growth rates during prior two years. We see more and more real sector branches demonstrate the drop in the output. Consumer demand growth rates are slowing down. At the same time, incremental growth of the households income continues going to savings and not to the consumer market. Statistics shows significant slowdown of inflation," the minister said.
The demand for investment goods is going down in the machine-building sector, Reshetnikov noted.
"Monetary policy toughening and banking regulation measures drive the credit crunch. The demand for investment goods is plunging, primarily for products of the machine-building sector, special machinery, freight transport, light commercial vehicles, buses and the like products," the minister added.