Russian Economy General News: #7

Svyatoslavich wrote:

gaurav wrote:
U.S deep state is looking for various ways to counter Russia China partnership ..

Of course they are trying. Good news is: they are extremely stupid. They inherited a very powerful, world leader country, and all they can do with it is to sink it and raise its enemies. All they are managing to do when trying to isolate Russia, destroy its economy, and separate it with China, is the opposite they want.

How the kremlin views the middle class of Russia (basically generating teh GDP due to defence expenditure ,Oil and Gas and removing the people)
What is the OPEC role in Russian economy ..(I mean how OPEC resistance stabilizes the Gov expenditures in many countries)

gaurav wrote:See there are very knowledgeable people on this forum.
Hnece we need to discuss the India Russ china axis. There is a deep state war on going inside kremlin ..
One of teh forum members himself admitted that Kremlin is ruled by deep state .. then there will always be opposing policies..
may be the time is not right
to discuss all these things .. once the picture starts materializing (becomes more visible) we will be in a better position to discuss on this forum.

What the under currents inside Kremlin .
What are the under currents within Russia China axis .. why so much tension between Rus China and India axis.
How the kremlin views the middle class of Russia (basically generating teh GDP due to defence expenditure ,Oil and Gas and removing the people)
What is the OPEC role in Russian economy ..(I mean how OPEC resistance stabilizes the Gov expenditures in many countries)

We need to ignore the present dynamics of EU and US , they are not responsible for the current stagnation/road blocks in India Russ CHina axis

All people were demanding that I present some media news for this .. These topics are not covered by media.

Arrow wrote:Is GDP PPP a better index of economic performance than nominal GDP? Sometimes there are big differences.

MOSCOW, August 31 (Itar-Tass) - RIA Novosti. Investments should revive the Russian economy. The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade expects that the surge in investment activity will become the basis for accelerating GDP growth in the next three years. Encourage investment will be the activation of lending - both the population and enterprises, said the head of the ministry Maxim Oreshkin, presenting an updated forecast for 2017-2020.

The new forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development comes from the growth of the Russian economy in 2017 by 2.1% (the previous estimate is 2%). At the same time, the ministry's forecasts for GDP growth in 2018-2020 have been significantly improved. So, GDP in 2018 will grow by 2.1%, in 2019 - by 2.2%, in 2020 it will accelerate to 2.3%. The previous forecast assumed growth of the country's economy by 1.5% annually.

"In general, the main difference between the current forecast and the forecast in April is the revised dynamics of investment and investment activity for the whole three-year period, and we expect that in the next three years the growth of investment activity will be in the range from 4% to 5%, thereby contributing to more high rates of economic growth, "Oreshkin said.

The increase in investments, according to the updated forecast, will make 4.1% in 2017, 4.7% in 2018, 5.6% in 2019, and in 2020 it will accelerate to 5.7%. Earlier, the ministry forecasted an increase in investment in 2017 - by 2%, in 2018 - by 2.2%, in 2019 - by 2%, and in 2020 - by 2.1%.

The basic macro forecast for 2018-2020 is based on the preservation of the current tax system of the Russian Federation, and changes in taxes are possible in the target version of the forecast, they are still being discussed.

The RF Ministry of Economic Development also fails to put in the current forecast for 2018-2020 the possibility of expanding the US sanctions for the state debt of the Russian Federation, but takes into account the preservation of the sanctions of the West for the next three years.

Optimistic ambitions

The outlook is too optimistic and even ambitious, says Alexei Deviatov, chief analyst at Uralsib Bank

"Even for this year, the outlook looks excessively optimistic, and I can not even say about the rest of the year, where such optimism is." In the second quarter, the figure of 2.5% growth was achieved due to one-off factors, primarily cold weather, when it grew coal production, rail transportation, thermal power production.The growth rate, which allows us to reach 2.1% for the year, we will not be in the second half of the year, "RIA Novosti said.

According to him, Uralsib's current forecast for economic growth in 2017 is kept at 1.3% and can be slightly revised up to 1.5%.
Similar estimates were also made by Nordea Bank - the bank did not correct its forecasts for GDP growth in 2017 at 1.6%, in 2018-2019 - about 1.5%.

"It's clear that now we have such a recovery, it's a rebound after two years of recession - so now we see quite confident growth rates, but next year will need to grow from a higher base." We do not yet see the potential for such growth, - the analyst of "Nordea bank" Tatyana Evdokimova considers.

According to her, the data of the second quarter of this year will be the most positive by the end of the year, and in the third or fourth quarter there will be a slowdown in growth rates. Rosstat tentatively estimated GDP growth in the second quarter at 2.5% in annual terms.

The Minister of Economic Development, on the contrary, is optimistic and expects GDP growth in August-September to return to its previous trajectory after the July slowdown - when growth slowed to 1.5% from 2.9% in June.

Pending investment

To promote investment in the Russian economy will be the expansion of investment lending, the improvement of working conditions for business and the active growth of final demand. This demand will be supported and retail lending, explained Oreshkin.

Inflation in Russia at the end of 2017 will be record low and may even be below the revised forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development in 3.7%. Oreshkin believes that the current slowdown in the growth of consumer prices gives the Central Bank the opportunity to reduce the key rate, which will lead to a decrease in real interest rates and spur credit expansion.

In accordance with the new forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development, inflation in the Russian Federation in 2018-2020 will be at the level of 4%. "We see no reason why the Central Bank could not reach the target values ​​here," the minister added.

Conservative budgetary policy and the mechanism of the budgetary rule, which alleviates the dependence of the ruble exchange rate on oil prices, also assists the business mood, Oreshkin is sure.

"Indeed, we see by the first half of the year that it is investments that are growing at an extremely high pace, while consumption remains very weak." In principle, there are certain prerequisites for these trends to continue. "Here, a stable ruble exchange rate is important, which allows more predictably build investment plans, buy imported technologies, "Yevdokimova of Nordea Bank believes.

Devyatov believes that the growth of investment in Russia this year will exceed 4%, but mostly not at the expense of private investment. "As far as I understand, these are our big projects - the Crimean Bridge, the Power of Siberia, and private investments are not growing very much, and where we have such a huge increase in investments - I do not understand," Devyatov said.

According to Evdokimova, the increase in investments can be put by the reduction in the last months of the company's profits, and if this trend continues, it may slightly hamper the favorable development of the scenario.

To accelerate the growth of investments, there are three factors, the chief economist of the EDB, Yaroslav Lissovolik, believes. "The first is due to the fact that interest rates have fallen and they will continue to decline, which will contribute to the growth of lending and, accordingly, this should support investment. The second factor is a slowdown in capital outflows, we believe that in the second half of the year it will slow down somewhat compared with the first half of the year, and during the next year it will be lower than during this year, a net outflow of capital, "- said the economist.

The third factor is the structural measures taken by the Ministry of Economic Development, including in terms of supporting project financing in order to support the growth of investments, explained Lisovolik.

Ruble and oil are stable

The April macroeconomic forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development suggested that the ruble at the oil price of $ 40 per barrel will reach 68 rubles per dollar by the end of the year. The new forecast comes from the fact that the rate will be 63 rubles per dollar at the end of this year.

"We estimate the current exchange rate as very close to the fundamental one, and we do not expect a radical change in the rate in the coming quarters, but we expect some weakening of the ruble, literally by 1-2 rubles by the end of this year, which will be associated with the continued recovery of domestic demand and import growth, which will be a little "poddavlivat" exchange rate, "- said Oreshkin.

The average exchange rate for 2017 will be 59.7 rubles per dollar against 64.4 rubles per dollar, laid in the previous version of the forecast.
In 2018, the average annual rate of the Russian currency, according to the Ministry of Economic Development, will be 64.7 rubles per dollar instead of the previously forecasted 69.8 rubles per dollar. In 2019, the ruble will weaken to 66.9 rubles per dollar instead of 71.2 rubles per dollar, and in 2020 - to 68 rubles per dollar instead of 72.7 rubles per dollar, laid in the previous version of the forecast.

Speaking about oil prices, Oreshkin also noted that they will be stable at least until the end of the first quarter of 2018 and will fall to $ 41-42 per barrel of Urals oil by the middle of next year.

As a result of this year, the average price for oil will be $ 49 per barrel, in 2018, the forecast was raised to $ 43.8 from $ 40.8 per barrel, estimates for 2019-2020 were maintained at $ 41.6 and $ 42.2 per barrel .

Targeted option

The Ministry of Economic Development, in addition to the basic one, prepared two more variants of the forecast of the socio-economic development of the Russian Federation for 2017-2020 - the target and the conservative one. The difference between the base and the conservative is the more negative dynamics of oil prices.

The target forecast is much more interesting in the context of the president's instruction to develop a plan for the development of the country's economy until 2025, which will allow Russia to reach the rates of economic growth above the world at the turn of 2019-2020. Earlier, Oreshkin said that it was in this scenario that the measures of plan-2025 were taken into account.

On Thursday, Oreshkin acknowledged that the measures implemented by the government to accelerate GDP growth are still not sufficient to bring the country's economy to a growth rate not lower than the world, but the government will continue to work in this direction and will offer new ideas.

In the April version of the target scenario for the forecast of social and economic development, the GDP growth in the Russian Federation was estimated at 2%, in 2018 - at 1.7%, in 2019 and 2020 - 2.5% and 3.1%, respectively. In the current version of the forecast, the GDP growth rate in 2017 was increased to 2.1%, in 2018 - to 2.2%, in 2019 - to 2.6%. The benchmark for GDP growth in Russia in 2020 remained the same - 3.1%.

"The target scenario as a whole remains without significant changes, the indicators of 2017-2018 have been revised, they have been updated taking into account the current dynamics and measures already implemented." We look better than we looked in the previous target scenario, but for the time being those measures that are implemented , they are not enough to reach 3.1% of GDP, "Oreshkin said.

According to Lisovolik, without additional measures to achieve growth of 3.1% is unlikely to succeed. "All that is above 2%, at the moment requires additional structural measures, I think that measures will be necessary, first of all, in the sphere of increasing labor productivity, the emphasis on this is now beginning to be made to a greater extent," the economist said.


As the expert of the research and forecasting group of ACRA Dmitriy Kulikov believes, it is important for the authorities to understand the "what niche other than the energy sector we could take - and create incentives for development in this area." The transition period, he said, may be accompanied by lower growth rates than in the whole world.

"In addition, we are likely to lose 0.3-0.4 percentage points of growth due to the reduction in the workforce in the next five years." Our estimate of the growth potential in the medium and long term is 1.5% per year ", - he said.


РИА Новости https://ria.ru/economy/20170831/1501500797.html

gaurav wrote:Thank yu all of you for acknowledging atleast something. I and PD(padragon) always seem to be in sync even on such sensitive matters
like deep state operation.  PD always bang on target.
When I first saw that this huge fraud show called brics summit in xiamen(shanghai) . Then I realized that I had to make those comments and surprisingly not many people oppose my point of view. Ofcourse there will be tons of articles heraldign russ china great great partnership.
Lets see where it all goes.
There was a deal Rosneft Essar (13 billion usd). It would open Rosneft to 1 billion middle class people.
(lot of googling needed)
Russia has 100 million pensioners and people below 15 years . I dont think it has a middle class.
This deal was cancelled by deep state of Russia on (last)monday morning itself. I believe China does not have a deep state.
I believe China a democracy and Russia a full fledged , deep deep state .
Many people start realizing this awkward phenomena and a hell of a fraud show that this brics has become.

Let me go a further extreme colossal media(consultants , think tanks) in russia supports the deep state of russia(anybody heard of cnn here).
The media(only Russ not in india and not in china) is trying its level best to portray ha  ha ha ha great great great axis .. ha ha ha
what is this going on .. in media total confusion.
Somebody told Indian media is better .. i believe ..the first line of any TV channel in India ..is .. "speak the truth even if the whole world lies"
Yaah yaah seriously .. yu can buy a tatasky connection see NDTV (motto/punch line)..

Let see how this will all end up .. whether India , China or Russia gains upper hand ..we will see that in days, months and years to come by.
We iwll always hope that in the age when every second Russ and America are shouting WW3 at each other .. real media may rise from the
ashes of WW3 .. which will be fought on lies n lies as usual ..

Arrow wrote:Is GDP PPP a better index of economic performance than nominal GDP? Sometimes there are big differences.

Absolutely Correct , I believe Russia (real)GDP to be 2 trln usd but estimates (ppp) suggest 5 to 5.5 trl usd. Russia was under recession since
massive attack by western sanctions since 2013 itself. no excuses there.Lets not discuss that further.

As for India, India sold its foreign policy long time ago to the US, the BRICS is going nowhere because South Africa, Brazil and India are under too much debt to the Zionists and the west and that is why we are seeing a Russia, China and Iranian alliance, which is stronger than brics.

The outlook is too optimistic and even ambitious, says Alexei Deviatov, chief analyst at Uralsib Bank

"Even for this year, the outlook looks excessively optimistic, and I can not even say about the rest of the year, where such optimism is." In the second quarter, the figure of 2.5% growth was achieved due to one-off factors, primarily cold weather, when it grew coal production, rail transportation, thermal power production.The growth rate, which allows us to reach 2.1% for the year, we will not be in the second half of the year, "RIA Novosti said.

According to him, Uralsib's current forecast for economic growth in 2017 is kept at 1.3% and can be slightly revised up to 1.5%.
Similar estimates were also made by Nordea Bank - the bank did not correct its forecasts for GDP growth in 2017 at 1.6%, in 2018-2019 - about 1.5%.

"It's clear that now we have such a recovery, it's a rebound after two years of recession - so now we see quite confident growth rates, but next year will need to grow from a higher base." We do not yet see the potential for such growth, - the analyst of "Nordea bank" Tatyana Evdokimova considers.

According to her, the data of the second quarter of this year will be the most positive by the end of the year, and in the third or fourth quarter there will be a slowdown in growth rates.

kvs wrote:from Air International magazine.

It is clear that Russian GDP growth numbers are not reflecting the facts on the ground.   My view is that a huge part of Russia's
GDP is not monetized like in the OECD.    So Russia's real GDP number in PPP is not around $3 trillion but closer to $5 trillion.  
A non-monetized GDP is invisible in estimates of GDP size and growth.    Nobody measures the physical GDP or the "shadow"
GDP (not criminal or black market, but pseudo-barter and not taxed).  

Also, all western consumer information sources are biased drivel.   Anyone yapping about Russia's economy being weak is
a retard.   I have never seen Canada's rinky dink resource extraction (oil, gas, minerals, forest products) economy being called
weak.  

Henry Paulson. Hank. Remember him? Of the crisis in 2008, he said: “Where I come from, if someone takes a risk and they’re going to make the profit from that risk, they shouldn’t have the taxpayer pay for the losses.”

Quite the wisdom one expects from the 74th US Secretary of the Treasury.

Yet, as Paulson (pictured) played pass the parcel with the rest of us, it was he who unwrapped the final layer when the music stopped, and discovered that the prize within was a grenade.

Understandable, therefore, that he offered a second opinion somewhat in contrast to his first: “It’s better to have the taxpayer pay for the losses than have the United States of America become an economic wasteland. If the financial system collapses, it’s really, really hard to put it back together again.”

Well, it did, and it was. Two years after the fall of Lehman Brothers, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was still reflecting on the solution. “There are two fundamental reforms we need — to get adequate capital and… far higher levels of enforcements of… fraud statutes.”

So what progress has been made in the efforts to reduce the risks of another crisis?

Not enough. In a letter this year to Bank of England’s Governor, Mark Carney, (in his capacity as chairman of the Financial Stability Board), the Senior Supervisors Group reported that “firms’ progress toward consistent, timely, and accurate reporting of top counterparty exposures fails to meet supervisory expectations”.

It said there is still too little reform, and too little essential knowledge of counterparty risk.

But what of Greenspan’s assertions of criminal behaviour in financial markets?

Again, no change. Market manipulation is not a conspiracy theory. The Bank of Japan has manoeuvred its bond market to a point where bond futures no longer trade. Its interventions have distorted free-market pricing mechanisms to the point that risk is virtually impossible to quantify.

But the most pressing concern is the behaviour of central banks, which had previously appeared a solid safe haven.

Recently, the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum think-tank revealed that global central banks have speculated with $29 trillion (£23 trillion) in global markets, including stock markets.

I may have been absent that day but since when were central banks given discretion to trade and speculate to such an extreme? How effective can they be at managing the risk of others?

The European Central Bank’s Asset Quality Review is underway and seeks to review the provisions set aside by banks. But AQR is an unhelpful distraction. The exercise has understandably placed further pressure on all banks to bolster their capital positions.

But in preparation for the stress tests, most European banks have been furiously strengthening their balance sheets, increasing the likelihood that they will avoid the spotlight of attention, but masking more fundamental weaknesses.

These stress tests are useless if the ECB fails adequately to measure, calculate and quantify derivatives exposures, counterparty risk and a default on “risk-free” risky eurozone bonds.

Across the pond, the Federal Reserve doesn’t look in good shape either. The toxic assets it has bought remain under wraps and it has helped to create a false financial environment. Its 0% interest rate policy has flooded the planet. Cheap dollars have funded bad investments. Inflation has been stoked. Real wages have sunk. Asset prices have ballooned.

The Fed’s 1913 charter needs immediate, drastic revision. And a transparent independent audit is essential, to include the Fed’s activities in the physical gold, swaps and derivatives markets.

How financially robust a world do we have where flats in London sell for millions despite the average salary in Britain sitting at £27,600 per year?

A quick look at the upper echelons of the major central banks reveals a chummy elite club full of former investment bankers, advisers to mismanaged administrations and bosses looking after their previous employers.

Bank fraud is still the reality about which Greenspan warned us, and major global lenders in question have become so big they’re nigh on impossible to prosecute, or so rich they can act with impunity.

Recent examples include JPMorgan which paid $20 billion in fines in 2013 (when chief executive Jamie Dimon’s 2014 compensation was increased nearly 75%), Bank of America which settled for fines of $12 billion, Citibank ($10 billion), Goldman Sachs ($121 million), BNP ($10 billion).

Too big to fail, jail, bail or prosecute is simply too big to exist. Unregulated, systemic banking fraud, a lack of enforcement and failure to properly manage counterparty risk will soon cause the next collapse.

The recipe was ever thus: equal measures of greed and speculation, blind-bake, heat on full power. Here we go again, cooking up another pie, hoping it will taste better than the last one.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Well, Einstein, here’s a new theory: relatively speaking, the risk is 40% bigger than it was in 2008, bigger institutions, bigger transgressions, bigger fines. And this time, the central banks want a slice of the pie, making this an exponentially larger feeding frenzy that can only end with indigestion.

Our only chance for salvation is an injection of honesty and governance into politics. Voters will not keep blindly electing politicians on rhetoric and spin, but that doesn’t mean the outcome will be an improvement. The swing to the right in the recent European elections suggests more than a protest vote.

Someone once alerted me to the Bohica syndrome. Bohica? I asked.

He sneered: “Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.”

Mitchell Feierstein is a hedge fund manager and chief executive of Glacier Environmental Fund

Austin wrote:

As for India, India sold its foreign policy long time ago to the US, the BRICS is going nowhere because South Africa, Brazil and India are under too much debt to the Zionists and the west and that is why we are seeing a Russia, China and Iranian alliance, which is stronger than brics.

I cant speak for Brazil or South Africa as I dont know much on these countries but I can speak about India.

Indias Foreign Policy is fairly neutral , Yes it does buys lots of arms from US Russia Israel France etc and it does have many joint exercise like Malabar Indra etc but its it does not and wont support any country for any military intervention.

The only time India will ever participate in Military Conflict or Intervention is when UN approves it and it is under UN flag , No political party in India will have the courage to go along militarily either with US or with Russia inspite of having good relations with both.

So Indias foriegn policy is sold neither to US or Russia or any other country.

Having said that it is in Interest of Russia and China to keep India friendly and keep its relation dispute free so that the lobbies in India in Business or Media dont force Government to support one or the other country