JOHANNESBURG, August 22. /TASS/. Significant inflationary pressure in the world is caused by the irresponsible behavior of a number of countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a video address to the participants of the BRICS Business Forum.
According to the Russian leader, the global community has to solve complex tasks "amid significant inflationary pressure, caused, among other things, by the irresponsible actions of a number of countries." He added that those countries took such steps "to smooth the costs of the pandemic, which provokes the accumulation of private and public debt."
Among such tasks, he named, in particular, ensuring the post-pandemic recovery of the economies of the BRICS states, improving the well-being of citizens, modernizing industry and building efficient transport and logistics chains, and stimulating a fair technology transfer.
As the Russian President stressed, "illegitimate sanctions practice, illegal freezing of assets of sovereign states, and in fact - violation of all the basic norms and rules of free trade and economic life, which not so long ago seemed unshakable" also has a serious negative impact on the international economic situation.
"A direct consequence of this was a shortage of resources, increased inequality, rising unemployment, aggravation of other chronic problems of the global economy. Prices for food, basic agricultural products and crops go up, which affects the most vulnerable poor countries in the first place," he said.
"It is important that in such conditions the BRICS states are strengthening their interaction, and our joint work to ensure economic growth and sustainable development brings concrete, tangible results: new infrastructure and investment projects are being jointly launched, commodity exchanges are growing, and industry contacts are expanding," Putin went on.
"The main thing is that we cooperate on the principles of equality, partnership support, respect for each other's interests, and this is the essence of the future-oriented strategic course of our association, a course that meets the aspirations of the main part of the world community, the so-called global majority," he said.