Speaking about the Russian Central Bank's steps in the current economic situation, Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged the government to bear in mind its own share of responsibility.
“I certainly see criticism toward the Central Bank and its chairperson. It’s grounded in some respects and less so in other ways, but the government shouldn’t forget about its measure of responsibility either,” Putin said in reply to a question from Interfax at an annual press conference in Moscow on Dec.18.
In particular, “it’s necessary to work with exporters, for example, whose foreign currency revenues are quite large,” he said.
“Here you are, the head of government met with the top managers of our major companies [on Dec.17], and we see that there is some result,” he said.
Putin acknowledged that companies, as well as any individual, think about saving something “for a rainy day.”
“Is this behavior correct? It isn’t in terms of economic logic. But, nevertheless, companies are doing this. And now we see that there has been some result on the whole, and there has been a so-called bounce,” Putin said.
“Other measures should also be taken by the government: first of all, inflation control is definitely the Central Bank’s obligation, but there are some things that the government should address as well, for instance, the prices of petrol and food products,” he said.
“This needs to be dealt with, and in this situation this needs to be done precisely manually, whoever might criticize this,” Putin said.
“It’s necessary to meet daily and weekly with manufacturers, market players, retail chains, and oil companies, which have monopolized our market to a significant degree,” he said.
“The FAS [Federal Antimonopoly Service] should work properly,” he added.
“These actions should be joint, collective, and well thought-out, without interfering in the Central Bank’s or the government’s purview. But nevertheless, there should be coordination,” he said.
“Surely, one can tear into [Central Bank Chairperson Elvira] Nabiullina, but it should not be forgotten that not only the Central Bank is responsible for the economic situation in the country,” Putin said.
