Beginning of Meeting on Economic Issues.Part 2
December 2, 2009
Gorki, Moscow Region
Совещание по экономическим вопросам.
2 декабря 2009 года
Московская область, Горки
Another subject directly related to this meeting is that the formation of the customs union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan calls for new approaches in economic activity. We have already signed the agreement on a common customs code for the three countries, and have taken decisions on common customs duties regulations and also on establishing a common non-tariff regulation system. This is an extremely important step for our countrys economy, as it is for our allies and partners Belarus and Kazakhstan.
It is already clear that this will have a big impact on the means at our disposal for influencing the pace and extent of economic growth. It will reduce our possibilities for managing and regulating these processes by hand. This will be the case for customs duties, at any rate, from now on. We need to think therefore on how to make optimum use of this mechanism next year.
On the subject of customs duties, I think that their increase has not achieved the desired results in most areas. We had a number of reasons for making this decision, but it has not had any substantial effect and has raised numerous objections on issues that you all know. I therefore want to hear from you on the preliminary conclusions and the proposals for further work in this area, including adjustment of duties on some specific goods in the upcoming months. I have just signed an instruction for the Government on this subject.
This then is todays agenda. The Chairman of the Russian Central Bank will now say a few words.
CHAIRMAN OF THE RUSSIAN CENTRAL BANK SERGEI IGNATYEV: Overall, I think the macroeconomic situation is stable and inflation is steadily coming down. Inflation was running at 0.3 percent for the first 23 days of November. Last year it was 0.6 percent for the same period. Accumulated inflation over the year as a whole comes to 8.4 percent, as compared to 12.3 percent last year. Overall, we expect inflation of around 9 percent, perhaps 9.2 percent this year considerably less than last year, and substantially less than what we were expecting six months ago.
DMITRY MEDVEDEV: At the start of the year.
SERGEI IGNATYEV: The drop in inflation has made it possible to lower the Central Bank interest rates. At the end of November we lowered (for the ninth time) the refinancing rate by half a percent, bringing it down to 9 percent. In April it was 13 percent.
DMITRY MEDVEDEV: This refinancing rate is the lowest ever over recent years, isn't it?
SERGEI IGNATYEV: Yes, it is the lowest ever. Before the crisis began it was 10 percent, I think. Now we have lowered it to 9 percent.
Commercial banks are also lowering their interest rates on loans to the real sector, but unfortunately, this is not happening as fast as we are bringing our rates down. There are reasons for this. I imagine we will discuss these reasons later.
The main factors helping to bring down inflation are, first, moderate growth in the money supply, which has been growing by around 1.5-2 percent a month over recent months, and this is a very comfortable growth rate. Second, the situation on the currency market has stabilised. The ruble strengthened a little against the dollar-euro basket after February, but at the same time the exchange rate remains quite flexible. We are intervening less often than in past years, and on a smaller scale, and we are trying to smooth out only the sharpest fluctuations in the roubles exchange rate against other currencies.
As far as the balance of payments goes, it remains in a strong and stable situation. The current account has a positive balance of around $5-6 billion a month.
The capital flow situation is more complicated. We saw an outflow of capital in the third quarter, but in November, or in October to be precise, we registered an inflow of around $10 billion. Our preliminary results show that this inflow continued in November and came to around $4 billion.
Our currency reserves now come to around $445 billion. This is more than at the start of the year.
DMITRY MEDVEDEV: What is the total now?
SERGEI IGNATYEV: $445 billion. At the start of the year we had $427 billion. The figure dropped in February-March to around $384 billion after we completed our devaluation. Now the reserves are quite high.
I will end my opening remarks there.
http://www.kremlin.ru
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Д.Медведев.Совещание.02.12.09.Part 1by niknikolay377 views
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