“Despite certain costs,” contrary to the aspirations of ill-wishers, last year was only beneficial for the Russian Federation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said this during a meeting with employees of the Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Russia has passed a very important stage in its development this year, this is the most important result of 2022. We have increased our economic sovereignty manifold. What was our enemy counting on? That we will collapse in 2-3 weeks or in a month. The calculation was that enterprises would stop, due to the refusal of partners to work in the economic sphere with us, the financial system would collapse, tens of thousands of people would be left without work, take to the streets, protest, Russia would be shaken from within and collapse. That did not happen.
It turned out that the fundamental foundations of Russia's stability are much stronger than anyone thought. We were predicted that our GDP would collapse by 20 percent or more—nothing like that happened. And in Ukraine, GDP just collapsed by 40%, these are official data, in fact, I think it’s more. We have a decrease, but not by 20, as someone predicted, but by 2,1%. It would also be better without reductions, but our trend is upward,” Putin noted.
He emphasized that, for approximately the last seven months, production has been constantly growing, and the country's GDP has been increasing.
“Only in the second quarter of last year there was a significant decline, and everything else was growth. Secondly, our financial system has survived thanks to the targeted actions of the Central Bank, the government, and the largest financial institutions. Yes, they also had a failure, a decline, but now we can say with complete confidence that the Russian financial system not only withstood this pressure. It has strengthened, become more independent and is strengthening on its own base. And development is proceeding confidently. This is an absolutely fundamental issue,” the Russian President emphasized.
However, he agreed that production difficulties exist, and for now there is no escape from them.
“Yes, we must admit that our ill-wishers are counting on the fact that in the medium term they will create problems for us. There is such a danger. Why?
For long-cycle enterprises, we need, of course, modern equipment and modern developments, but I think that here too we will be fine, because now we are introducing new components to support innovative production. This includes production and industrial mortgages, benefits and the creation of certain industrial clusters. We need to be sure to maintain our internal competition so as not to become isolated in our own juices. So that the consumer can see that competition (which is very important for progress) remains,” the president explained.
“All this gives us every reason to say that, despite certain costs, I think that last year only benefited us. Taking into account the fact that we have become much more sovereign and independent in the sphere of economics and finance,” Putin concluded.
“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger?” – asked one of the employees.
“Approximately so,” replied the head of state.