MOSCOW, January 15. /ITAR-TASS/. The positive experience of presidency in the Group of Twenty will allow Russia to put forth proposals at the G8 summit with greater confidence, Sergei Drobyshevsky, Executive Director of the G20 and G8 Expert Councils and Director for Research at the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, said on Wednesday, January 15.

“The experience of presidency in the Group of Twenty is truly positive. Russia did not spoil its presidency by any unfortunate decision. On the contrary, success was achieved. And this enables Russia to feel more confidently and have more reason to forth proposals on its own behalf,” Drobyshevsky said at the Gaidar Forum.

At the same time, he thinks that the main difficulty at the G8 summit will be the fact that the Group of Eight “is a club of countries that solve global geopolitical, not economic, problems.”

“So while in the Group of Twenty Russia represented a new class of developing economy and enjoyed broad support from the Chinese, Brazilian and Indian economies, in the Group of Eight it will represent largely itself and can hardly count on the support of other partners,” the expert said.

In his opinion, the agenda to be proposed by Russia is quite neural politically “in order to avoid unnecessary political debates in the G8 and focus on such common issues as terrorism, drug trafficking and disasters.