The Ministry of Finance listed the reasons for Russia’s resistance to sanctions pressure

The representative of the Ministry of Finance explained why the Russian economy has shown resistance to Western restrictions. According to Dmitry Timofeev, Director of the Department for Control over External Restrictions of the Ministry, among other things, stability was ensured by a balanced budget and a policy of targeted inflation, the words of Mr. Timofeev are quoted by RBC.

“Russia is pursuing a policy of so-called financial stability. This is a balanced budget, for which the Ministry of Finance is responsible, and the Central Bank is pursuing a policy of targeted inflation and a floating exchange rate. This made it possible to avoid some kind of tough scenario, which, apparently, the West was counting on. Just because our financial system worked, continued to work and will continue to work,” said a representative of the Ministry of Finance at the Eastern Economic Forum.

Dmitry Timofeev also mentioned the relatively low share of imports in GDP. “We don’t have a lot of imports. If you look at GDP, then … it’s about 20%. But if there is export, there will be import, otherwise it doesn’t happen,” said Dmitry Timofeev. According to him, the current situation sets the task for Russia to change the financial system throughout the world. “We will have to do this, because we cannot continue like this,” Mr. Timofeev said.

In August, the Central Bank (CB) announced that won’t refuse from inflation targeting policy. The goal will also remain the same – a price increase of 4% per year. In the base scenario, it will be reached in 2024. And in 2023, the inflation rate will be in the range of 5-7%, the Central Bank believes.

The government, meanwhile, reported that the decline in GDP in 2022 could be only a little more than 2%, inflation – 12-13%, and the fall in investment will not exceed 2%.

Read more in the publication “Kommersant” “I almost didn’t fall because I did push-ups”.

Maria Fedotova