"Russian Government Manages to Curb Unemployment: Putin sMar 10, 2010 |
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| "The Russian government has avoided a sharp increase in unemployment and preserved the country's underdeveloped banking system, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday while summing up the government's main achievements in 2009. ""Unemployment has grown and is still growing, but it isn't as dramatic as it might have been,"" Putin told reporters during a working visit to Russia's Far Eastern city of Vladivostok. Putin recalled that Russia's largest banks disappeared after the 1998 financial crisis and took money with them. ""We have prevented this from happening (this time),"" he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. The government acquired several banks that were on the verge of bankruptcy amidst the ongoing economic downturn, he said. ""We've restructured them, merged or consolidated them."" Putin admitted that the credit market contracted considerably due to the economic crisis, but said the country is gradually emerging from this situation. The premier added that authorities should have spent more on diversifying the economy in the past decade. Russia, whose economy is heavily dependent on energy resources, was hard hit by the global economic downturn as oil prices collapsed late last year. Putin predicted early this month that Russia's economy would shrink by 8.5 to 8.7 percent this year. " |
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