The global recession has done more damage to Russia than even its government predicted, President Dmitry Medvedev told Channel 1 in a televised interview on Russian television last night.
"The real damage to our economy was far greater than anything predicted by ourselves, the World Bank and other expert organisations," he told viewers. He did add, though, that his government's revised prediction of a decline of 7.5% of GDP during 2009 was slightly lower than their earlier prediction of an 8% fall in GDP.
He highlighted that, unlike some other countries, and against the predictions of some analysts, Russia's banking system had survived the crisis fairly well. "Our banking system withstood the stress, and now it is doing just fine," he told the interviewer.
Medvedev went on to again criticize Russia's over-dependence on energy resources for foreign income, calling the situation "humiliating" for Russia and noting that this over-dependence on one sector of the economy was one of the main reasons why the Russian economy as a whole had suffered during the past 12 months. He outlined his vision for re-orienting the Russian economy, and his goal of creating a new economy and reducing Russia's reliance on energy income within 15 years. “That is a perfectly plausible time frame in which to create a new economy, an economy that will be competitive with other major world economies. Once a significant portion of our revenue is generated by something other than energy exports, let’s say at least 30 or 40 percent of it, then we would already be living in a different economy and a different country.”