Д.Медведев.Ответы на вопросы К.Клеймёнова.11.10.09.Part 3

Conversation with Dmitry Medvedev.Answers to questions from Director of News Programmes at Russia's Channel One Kirill Kleimenov.Part 3
October 11, 2009

Разговор с Дмитрием Медведевым. Ответы на вопросы руководителя дирекции информационных программ Первого канала Кирилла Клеймёнова.
11 октября 2009 года
Москва, Останкино

DMITRY MEDVEDEV: There are some areas where we are not progressing as quickly as we would like. I have spoken about this before, and I have given instructions to my colleagues in the Government. What areas are these? Well, one example is that at the end of last year, we remembered about one important measure government guaranties. Unfortunately, they were not being employed actively, even though we really ought to be using them, even during non-crisis periods. So we made a decision and signed a document. At first, the document was not very successful, so we improved the document. One would think that the banks would then find it acceptable and therefore make active use of it. However, despite an established threshold level for these guaranties equal to 300 billion roubles, there are currently very few of them issued. This means that we have yet to fully learn how to implement our decisions quickly, even ones that are quite timely, urgent and very much needed. In other words, a great deal of time passed between the moment when we made the decision and the moment when it was actually implemented. And this has implications about the future: it implies that in difficult times and during periods of economic instability, we must work as actively and consistently as we can. Otherwise, we simply wont achieve the necessary results. This is just one example, but it is a very telling one.

Another issue is unemployment, and it is a very difficult problem. Indeed, growth in joblessness was far greater than we had expected. At some point, we had about 5 million unemployed individuals, but then that number grew to 7.5 million. Currently, these figures have decreased somewhat, which means that the programmes we implemented to fight unemployment are working. Still, unemployment figures are nevertheless very high, and we must put maximum effort into reducing them drastically. This challenge stands before the Russian economy as well as other nations, because according to a multitude of estimates, unemployment is the biggest problem that we must overcome. We will promote economic growth and we will give our manufacturing enterprises the opportunity to develop, but whats most important is to control unemployment. This is a clear challenge for the President, the Cabinet, and other government authorities.

KIRILL KLEIMENOV: And the regions?

DMITRY MEDVEDEV: It goes without saying that these are precisely the sorts of issues that the regions have to address. We have strongly encouraged them to take full advantage of employment programmes and to create new jobs, and that has helped with some of these problems. But this does not mean that the situation will resolve itself. We have to get behind them and push.

KIRILL KLEIMENOV: If we turn to the current situation, the rate of inflation in Russia has dropped significantly. In August it was practically zero. Is this a seasonal factor? Or is it also the result of the measures we have taken?

DMITRY MEDVEDEV: As you are aware, inflation was rampant in this country. We made a commitment to do everything possible to contain it. Some of our efforts have been unsuccessful. Spending has soared in a number of areas. And of course this has created problems. This includes difficulties in making credit available for ordinary people. Mortgages, for example: we fought hard to maintain set interest rates, but it didn't work. Now inflation for all intents and purposes really has slowed down and prices are going up more slowly as a result. In the month of August the rate of inflation was zero percent. This is a very rare phenomenon in recent years. There are several reasons for this. Of course it is linked to a drop in the money supply and an accompanying decrease in production. Our inflation rate has dropped considerably. Generally speaking this is a good thing for people's incomes and their purchasing power. It's good for consumers too. I wouldn't attribute it exclusively to stabilisation measures. After all, these are the consequences of a general economic slowdown. Our challenge now is to continue to work on reducing inflation, because our job is to bring it down to 5-7 percent or less. Then we will be able to lend at normal rates. Then our citizens will be able to obtain mortgages and consumer loans at reasonable rates.


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