Reinvigorating Growth Potential : Priorities for the Central Bank of Russia

The pace of global recovery remains weak. More than twelve months since the G-20 summit in Los Cabos, G-20 members are laboring their way towards “Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth” in a clouded world economic outlook, with the eurozone in a state of recession, a combination of policy stalemate and across the board fiscal consolidation constraining growth in the U.S., and emerging markets and developing countries experiencing a clear slowdown compared to their rapid pre-crisis expansion. A durable recovery that creates good jobs, which G-20 leaders agreed to cooperate for in September 2009, proves to be an elusive objective. Fiscal consolidation acts as a drag on economic recovery and the G-20's capacity to deliver on the growth and jobs agenda is questioned by its citizens. This calls for the G-20 members' commitment to a balanced and coordinated mix of policies and instruments, reflective of the state of their economies, which would gradually strengthen economic growth and promote macroeconomic stability. Responding to global and domestic priorities, Russia has placed growth and jobs at the core of the G-20 agenda within the fundamental question of what should be the main macroeconomic and financial policy requirements for growth