Russian PM attributes economic slowdown to global factors, Crimea

The Russian economy is stalling due to a range of global and domestic factors, including events over Crimea, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday. "Everyone has lately come to a conclusion that traditional factors of the economic growth are practically exhausted," Medvedev told the government's Experts Council in the Volga city of Ulyanovsk. Among the factors clogging Russia's economy growth, Medvedev mentioned the situation of global markets as well as Crimea, which Russia absorbed in March. The prime minister offered to look for ways to speed up the economy through cutting bureaucratic red tapes and changing rigid mentality of the younger Russians who see business as an undesirable career path. "This is a dangerous trend that many young people dream of a career of being state officials. This is not a good sign. The priorities must be different," Medvedev said, urging experts to work out a program for popularization of private business as young people's life objective. He lamented that a "significant part" of Russians believe that making money is a "shameful deed" and admitted that the government failed so far to alter that attitude and improve business climate in the country. On a flip side, Medvedev pointed at Russia's leading position among emerging economies in terms of capital inflow. He called it "surprising" that over the last two weeks Russia has attracted more capital than Brazil. He recognized there were fears that the government might not reach the targets it has set for a period to 2020. In late March, Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev warned that should the forecast of 100-billion-dollar capital outflow in 2014 become a reality, Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) would slow down to 0.6 percent compared with 1.3 percent posted in 2013.