Vladimir Putin visited the Khabarovsk Territory

President Vladimir Putin visited the Khabarovsk Territory on Thursday and met with entrepreneurs from the Far East. Together with the moderator, Chairman of Business Russia Alexei Repik, the head of state taught businessmen to talk about the Russian economy in a positive way, because it has already become the first in Europe in terms of purchasing power parity. Businessmen, in turn, turned to the president with various requests. One of the event participants told a Kommersant correspondent that “complaining to the main man of our country” is like being in a fairy tale.

The Khabarovsk Territory has long been considered an opposition region: in the 2018 presidential elections, Vladimir Putin received 65.8% of the vote here versus 76.7% in Russia as a whole. In the fall of the same year, the then head of the region, United Russia member Vyacheslav Shport, lost the second round of gubernatorial elections to the LDPR candidate Sergei Furgal, and a year later the Liberal Democrats won the elections to the regional parliament and the Khabarovsk City Duma. In the summer of 2020, Mr. Furgal was arrested on charges of organizing murders, after which the region was headed by another member of the LDPR, Mikhail Degtyarev.

A special audience was chosen to communicate with the president – entrepreneurs from all over the Far East.

Business-minded, they did not delve into political and social issues, preferring to solve their current problems. To further endear the president to the participants, the moderator of the meeting, Chairman of Business Russia Alexander Repik, immediately tried to set the head of state in the most optimistic mood. To begin with, Mr. Repik called the Russian economy “a very, very resilient creature that knows how to adapt, but, most importantly, grows and develops at a speed that surprises even us.” After this, he recalled that, according to preliminary forecasts, the growth of the Russian economy in 2023 should be 3.5%, which is “significantly higher than the world average,” and on behalf of his colleagues he outlined an even more encouraging forecast: “Here are the analysts of Business Russia, for example, They believe that now we will calculate everything, and by the end of the year it will definitely be more than 4% growth.”

Vladimir Putin not only did not argue with these calculations, but also willingly confirmed them, noting that the fall in 2022 was lower than predicted, which means that growth will be higher. “The counting is ongoing, so maybe there will be more GDP growth,” he concluded with pleasure. Alexey Repik made another pass to the president, saying that Russia is the first economy in Europe and the fifth in the world in terms of purchasing power parity: “The gap between us and Japan is so small that if we maintain this growth rate, or even in principle, what is called , we will move forward smoothly, we will overtake Japan in any moment.”

“Yes, this is an amazing result,” confirmed Vladimir Putin. “It seems that we are being strangled and pressured from all sides, but we have become the first in Europe in terms of economic volume as a whole, we have overtaken Germany and took fifth place in the world: China, USA, India , Japan, Russia. In Europe – number one.”

It should be noted that measuring the gross product by purchasing power parity (PPP) allows us to compare what was produced in different countries over the year not only in absolute value, but also taking into account the difference in exchange rates and price levels in national currency in different countries. Country rankings are calculated by the IMF and the World Bank. In particular, Russia’s advance over Germany in terms of GDP in PPP terms in 2023 was ensured by a noticeable change in the structure of both production and consumption in Russia and reflects the forced transition of the population and industry to relatively cheaper domestic goods after companies from developed countries left the Russian Federation, as well as a statistical increase in the purchasing power of the ruble due to an increase in the share of cheaper Asian analogues of Western brands in imports.

Mr. Repik did not stop there and added that as a result of the sanctions, Russian business received a “vaccination from investment abroad” for decades. “I said this a long time ago,” Mr. Putin confirmed. However, this did not mean at all that he would also respond positively to all subsequent remarks.

Although someone, of course, was lucky. So, in general, everything turned out well for the shareholder of two poultry farms in the Khabarovsk Territory, Lyudmila Kuznetsova, despite the fact that Mr. Repik somewhat riskily presented her as “responsible for egg prices.” Mrs. Kuznetsova began by thanking the governor for his help in overcoming the consequences of bird flu, which killed “more than half a million chickens” at her enterprise. “But, probably, with God’s help, with Governor Mikhail Vladimirovich Degtyarev’s faith in us and with responsibility towards the population we feed, we nevertheless produced 25 million eggs in December, we have the lowest price in the region,” she said entrepreneur. “Mikhail Vladimirovich, have you noticed, you are next to the Lord in the hierarchy,” Vladimir Putin could not resist remarking. Mr. Degtyarev immediately stood up and sat down again, as if slightly adjusting the designated hierarchy in this way. Meanwhile, Lyudmila Kuznetsova shared her concern that agricultural lands were suffering due to floods, and proposed creating a subprogram for the land reclamation and restoration program concerning the Far Eastern District. “I will talk with Minister Patrushev (Minister of Agriculture Dmitry Patrushev.— “Kommersant”), we’ll see,” the president responded.

He promised two more speakers to help solve the problem of registering self-propelled equipment for the airport (it is necessary for the supervising departments to agree whether the equipment needs to be registered or not) and to consider the nuances of state support for housing and communal services projects. However, on the last question, Mr. Putin considered it necessary to correct the meeting participant, who rashly said that in terms of inflation, “it won’t be better.” “It will be better,” the president objected. “Because all the actions of the Central Bank and the government – not all, but a significant part of them, the Central Bank for sure – are aimed at suppressing inflation. And I think that we will reach the target indicators.” At the same time, Vladimir Putin promised to think about how to help the tourism cluster on Kunashir Island – perhaps by updating the runway.

However, not all speakers received positive responses.

For example, Alexander Sapozhnikov, co-owner and member of the board of directors of Russian Fishing Group LLC and Russian Crab LLC, asked the president to increase duties on fish imports. He structured his speech very carefully and spoke not so much about business as about justice. But Mr. Putin did not firmly promise anything: “I will definitely look, note it for myself and ask my colleagues to note it. Simply sharply increasing the import duty is dangerous, because the price may jump on the domestic market.” Then Mr. Sapozhnikov added a few more arguments: foreign markets were closed for Russian fish, which means it must be sold domestically, and in the end he laid out his main trump card: “Well, let me wish you a convincing victory in the elections.” The President thanked him for his wishes, but did not deviate from his own: “But as for your proposals, we need to calculate everything.”

Later, a Kommersant correspondent asked Alexander Sapozhnikov and Lyudmila Kuznetsova if they were satisfied with Vladimir Putin’s answers to their questions. “Well, time will tell… When will the outcome be clear? When will it reach the ministries and how will they decide. If we receive preferences for the fishing industry on at least one issue, we, of course, will be happy,” Mr. Sapozhnikov carefully formulated. “You know, it feels like we are in some kind of fairy tale,” said Mrs. Kuznetsova. “Probably, again, our mentality… Complain to the most important person in our country – and then something will move. This may also have an energetic effect… I don’t want to say that you are telling God, but the leader of the country is an unconditional authority. Hold his hand and life will get better. May be”.

Andrey Vinokurov, Khabarovsk; Oleg Sapozhkov