miketheterrible Tue Nov 20, 2018 5:57 pm
VEB is one of the most important banks of Russia. While not as rich as sberbank, it holds a ridiculous amount of Russian government assets and loans to even the military.
VEB is also growing as the largest loan bank for SME's (Small/Medium companies) and as well huge investor in development in every sector.
As for western sanctions and Russia's growth:
Let us not forget, that even 1% growth is still growth. Stagnation is 0% growth. Neither drop nor growth. In this case, 1% growth is very low. BUT, lets remember key facts here:
1) Russia has to rely heavily on its internal economic activity.
2) Most of its trade is really just export of Oil and Gas to third countries, while its internal consumption matters for nearly everything else. Oil and Gas only accounting for a small fraction (less than 20%) of Russia's total economy. So it goes to show how powerful internal consumption is.
3) Most world economic growth is in false recordings - China - Growth in construction and property management which is either ghost city related or just realestate altogether. USA - Heavy debt accounts for economic growth - be it consumer debt or government loans. 3 - EU - trading among themselves and the odd nation (France or UK) obtaining money from their assets in foreign countries (many of Frances former colonies still pay a tax to France. Hence why France is scared of Russia intervening in Central African Republic for example). Russia's growth is being undermined by themselves. Official growth vs unofficial growth ends up being two different things. Accountants believe Russia's real GDP growth is much higher than what government states. Probably for good reason too.
But in the end, Russia is going to go the route of self reliance and in this case, Autarky (small form of it really, with still exporting). Reason is that even though this equates to slow growth, its sustainable growth. Add to that, the higher the average Russian makes, the more they end up spending. The more they spend, the more they consume and more the money circulates in the economy. Inflation just adds to currency growth in circulation thus there is a perpetual growth. The additional funds for big time projects comes from the exports of goods. In this case, Russia really profits greatly from export of oil and gas hence why their budget surplus is in the billions of dollars. But believe it or not, Russia still imports various goods such as:
1) Electronics - this is becoming huge for Russia hence why so many small companies are jumping to this. Even in small forms like dummy terminals or electrical panels and other sub systems, these are still in huge demand
2) CNC Machines - this is also being built in house. Some being fully Russian and most being foreign companies opening up either manufacturing or assembly with potential manufacturing. while it isn't ideal to have foreign companies to have such access to the internal market, it at least helps offshoot the importing concept, creates jobs, and has potential to export to various markets.
3) Petrol - This is a huge one. Russia consumes so much petrol that their domestic production doesn't meet the needs of the people. To make it worst, many of the companies actually export more petrol than use for domestic needs because they make much higher profits from it. In end, it forces Russian government to import Petrol. And it is a rather large gap too apparently. More so that many of the companies are being forced to hold petrol for domestic consumption needs and also being forced by government to reduce costs for average consumer since prices were skyrocketing there as well. So there is obviously a HUGE market for more petrol stations. Other is that due to Russia's huge natural gas production, they are really banking on CNG automobiles (hence why new Lada Vesta, Granta, Xray, etc have Hybrid models (CNG+Battery)).
4) Automobiles - Russian's are gluttonous these years. They love foreign automobiles (Much like Chinese do). They rather have a Toyota, Honda or (god forbid) BMW. Well, now this is somewhat changing and many of these companies are moving further production with even more localization of parts (even more so than what Avtovaz does!) to Russia.
5) What Russia initially imported (Tractors) now they export. But there is still import of John Deer and Holland brand Tractors. Dunno why tbh.
6) Medicine/Food products. Funny enough, while Russia is the largest producer of vast amounts of food in the world, they still import brand name goods. This has to change. More companies need to step up and start building new brands for cheese, meats, etc. Medicine being another one. While this is a huge profiting market and its seeing mass growth in Russia, it still pales in comparison in terms of how much Russia imports. This is tens of billions of dollars given away to third countries just for something that can be done at home. This is changing, but not quick enough (but they (pharmaceutical) are making a killing in profits)
There are others, but while things are really good and changing, its actually funny how much Russia still imports. This goes to show a growing economy when the growth of imports is increasing. This means that local consumption demands are increasing thus that makes it more money available in the hands of the people. But this also means Russian companies need to step up and take the spot over foreign entities.
Home
Latest images
Register
Log in
Seriously though, did they actually forecast a 3% growth at one point? What's the source for that? 
