Russian President Vladimir Putin’s keynote speech to the “Russia Calling! Investment Forum” on Dec. 4 was about much more than whether using the dollar less in trade would bring a 100% tariff on the BRICS countries from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. The scope of his 25 minute speech included a detailed review of the condition and performance of the Russian economy, after 33 months of monster sanctions and financial warfare from the U.S. Treasury and European Commission trying to deliver Russia a “strategic defeat.” For 15 years now, “Russia Calling!” sponsored by VTB Bank has gathered business representatives from many countries, and in his keynote remarks, in the forum’s two-hour plenary this year, President Putin presented them with plenty of data and plans to think about.
Putin said, “We often hear people from the political, military, or economic fields say that these [NATO] countries set the task of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, including in the economy and technology, to drastically weaken our country’s manufacturing industry, finance and services; to create an insurmountable shortage of goods on our market; to destabilize the labor market; and to lower the living standards of our citizens. … Following a challenging period, the Russian economy has not only fully recovered, but is also living through qualitative structural changes, which is vitally important and, perhaps, is the most important outcome of our work in the economy over the past two to three years.”
Here are only the introductory matters Putin presented:
GDP grew by 3.6% in 2023, and 4.1% from January-October 2024;
“The growth mainly comes from the manufacturing industries and sectors with high added value. Thus, in a matter of ten months, our manufacturing industry has grown by more than 8%, 8.1% to be precise. The automotive sector and mechanical engineering are growing faster than other sectors…. In September, the number of IT employees grew by 8.1% year-on-year, and by almost 4%—3.9%—in the manufacturing industry.”
Referring to very low unemployment even among youth—Russia is mobilized for war and facing labor shortages—Putin added: “From January to October this year, the country’s consolidated budget surplus, inclusive of extrabudgetary funds, amounted to approximately 2.5 trillion rubles [$25 billion]. Meanwhile, spending—I want to emphasize this, and I believe that people present here understand what I am talking about—amounted to less than 35% of GDP, on a par with the 2021 levels.”
