MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/. Russia is recommended to reexamine the retirement age in order to maintain strong pension payments, First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund David Lipton told TASS in the interview on Thursday.

"It's clear that a private pension system needs to deliver for its pensioners. That means getting appropriately strong returns so it's important that the pension system has sufficient diversification to bring high but safe returns and it has appropriate supervision and regulation so that retirees' finances are safe," Lipton said.

Lipton thinks that it's also important that the retirement age is being examined and reexamined over time because if retirees retire very early in life it means that the average pension for everyone in the system will be lower.

"Now the demographics has shifted and life expectancy after declining for a couple of decades has begun to increase. With that, it makes sense to reexamine retirement ages in order to keep pension payments strong," Lipton said.

Read the full interview here.