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Zyuganov Gives Dismal Economic Forecast For Russia
Interfax - 4.9.12 - JRL 2012-66

MOSCOW. April 9 (Interfax) - The liberal socioeconomic policy of the past 12 years increased Russian dependence on oil and gas profits and created a threat of economic degrading, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov wrote in his analysis of the executive authorities' work. The article will be published by the newspaper Pravda on Tuesday. Cash, Coins, Line Graph

Interfax received an article copy from the author.

"The national administration has been following the worst ultra-liberal socioeconomic model for the past 12 years. This model transforms liberalism into uncontrolled chaos," he said.

"The modernization idea actively supported by society was only a smokescreen for the mounting dependence on the oil and gas market, the constant growth of imports and the curtailment of domestic industries," he said.

"This policy invariably increases the share of oil and gas revenues in the overall federal budget revenues. The share stood at 20% in 2000, 30% in 2004 and almost 50% in 2011. The swift growth of Russian dependence on raw materials is the result of the government policy, which totally disagrees with the modernization pledges," he said.

Zyuganov pointed to the ongoing capital outflow. "In the past three and a half years alone $330 billion was transferred from Russia to offshore companies. That is almost 10 trillion rubles or an average yearly budget of Russia in the same period," he said.

According to information possessed by the Communist Party, "the foreign debts of Russian corporations and banks, which are vested with power and assets by the authorities, has grown from $29 billion to $500 billion or 17 times in the past 12 years," he said.

"World oil and gas prices increased by 35% over the past two years but Russian economic development rates remained very slow; they are smaller than 4.3% promised by the Economic Development Ministry and included in the budget," Zyuganov said.

The industrial production growth nearly halved in the past decade, from 8.3% to 4.7%, he said. Meanwhile, imports continued to grow. They increased by 30% last year as compared to 2010.

"Russian involvement in the World Trade Organization (WTO) will only exacerbate this negative process," he said.

Zyuganov gave the following forecast for the national economy in the case of the continuation of the current socioeconomic policy. "Losses of the Russian consolidated budget from the reduced import and export duties alone will near 300 billion rubles by 2020, while aggregate losses of agriculture, the food industry, machine building, the light and textile industries may top 7 billion rubles and the number of jobs will be cut by two million," he said.

The current policy "assists the scientific, technical and industrial development of the leading foreign states and drives Russia into a degradation impasse," he concluded.

Keywords: Russia, Economy - Russian News -