MOSCOW. Oct 20 (Interfax) - The Russian economy is well prepared to sustain the lengthy impact of external negative events, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at a meeting of the Governmental Advisory Council for Foreign Investments on Monday.

"I would like to emphasize that our economy is rather well prepared for lengthy external shocks. The reservation of some oil profits in the budget means that the Reserve Fund will fully compensate the dip in oil prices. The budget 2009 will be balanced even if average annual oil prices stand at $70 a barrel," Putin said.

The expected surplus of current operations despite the decline of energy prices is another important factor of 2009 stability, Putin said. Thirdly, Russia has amassed large currency reserves that ensure a stable exchange rate, he said.

Russia has almost minimized the state debt, as the main debt is paid ahead of schedule, Putin added.

Russia has had high growth rates and a large safety factor in the past decade, he said. "Our state reserves are one of the world's largest; we have a stable balance of payment and one of the world's highest rates of gross national savings," he said. "Thus, we will largely fund the development of our economy with domestic resources."

While resolving national tasks, Russia has a stabilizing effect on the world economic situation, Putin said. Russian monetary authorities were one of the first to announce systemic anti-crisis measures. Russia quickly adopted appropriate laws and budgetary amendments. "They are begining to work," Putin said.

As for the world economic situation, Putin said, "The current crisis has one peculiarity - emerging markets were an epicenter of the previous global crisis of 1997-1998. Now the epicenter is nested in the United States."

The U.S. proceeded from selective rescue of particular financial institutions to massive financial aid to bankers; and European countries followed the suit, Putin said. "As of now, efforts taken by monetary authorities of the leading countries, the leading economies have curbed the liquidity deficit. We think this is a good, positive signal," he said. However, the final efficiency of these measures is not clear.

The U.S. financial crisis "infested the entire world financial system," Putin said. "Naturally, that may slow down the growth of developing economies," he remarked. The world market's liquidity deficit may slow down the influx of resources to emerging markets or raise the cost of borrowing funds. "That means the Russian economy will witness certain aftereffects. There may be a certain outflow of capital, especially as a substantial number of our enterprises were financed by foreign banks," he said.

"Still, BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India and China] will remain the locomotive of the world economic growth for the next few years," he said. According to International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts, 2009 GDP growth will amount to 9.3% in China, 6.9% in India, 5.5% in Russia and 3.5% in Brazil.

"Obviously, Russia is intertwined with the global economy. Alas the world financial crisis caused a meltdown on the Russian stock market and had an influence on the banking center. Quotations of domestic stocks went down. We must remember that the world oil price also has an additional effect on the market in this country," Putin said.

He stressed once again that the Russian economy was well prepared for lengthy external shocks.