Putin notes, Central Bank efforts on maintaining stability of financial market

President Vladimir Putin has noted successful joint efforts of the government and the Central Bank on maintaining the stability of the Russian financial market, according to the transcript of the meeting on economic issues released on the Kremlin’s website on Tuesday.

"The financial market is holding steady, particularly thanks to joint efforts of the government and the Central Bank," Putin said. "(Russia’s) gold and foreign exchange reserves have increased by 5.7% to $459 bln since the beginning of this year," he added.

President considers the current situation in the country's economy to be generally positive. "The situation in the Russian economy is generally positive on key parameters," he said. Putin noted the dynamics of industrial output since the beginning of this year. "Industrial growth has reached 3.1% in eight months, including a 3.8% increase of manufacturing," he said. Putin also mentioned the performance of enterprises and organizations in terms of fixed capital investments that went up by 3.2% in the first half of 2018. "Freight turnover is also rising (3% in eight months), same as retail trade (2.7%)," he said, adding that "those are important indicators not only of business activity, but also of consumer demand."

President also stressed that "inflation and unemployment are stably low." "In August, unemployment decreased to 4.6%, dropping to a record low, while prices growth was 3.4% in September in annual terms," he said.

Putin said that fueling higher growth rates and a faster wage and real income growth is a systemic task in the economy. "The systemic task is to reach higher economic growth rates, maintain investment activity, spur the development of manufacturing, small and medium-sized businesses, non-resource high-tech export, fuel faster growth of wages and real income of citizens," he said. President noted positive dynamics in the sector, as households’ disposable income rose by 2.2% in January-August 2018 year-on-year, while real wage growth was 8.4% in the same period. "That is not the case in all sectors, of course, and it is different from a regional perspective, but overall a positive trend is there," he added.

The meeting should focus on particular steps to solve the tasks in hand, Putin said.

Presidential Aide Andrei Belousov, First Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Economic Development Minister Maksim Oreshkin and Central Bank Chief Elvira Nabiullina participated in the meeting.