ST. PETERSBURG, June 21 (RIA Novosti) – Former Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin criticized First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov on Thursday for proposing an increase in budget spending on modernization of the economy.
“Unfortunately, today I heard from Shuvalov at a Sberbank lunch that it is necessary to increase spending on modernization. This is a mistake,” Kudrin said, at the opening of the St. Petersburg international economic forum.
“This does not mean that modernization should not be carried out. Simply a false source was named for this mechanism,” Kudrin said.
The Russian authorities should expect a serious economic decline to unfold in the European Union in the next twelve months, he said.
“We are fully drawn into this process. We should not count on a good capital market. We have failed to create the necessary prerequisites for solving certain structural problems,” he said.
In these conditions, Russia should tighten fiscal policy and accumulate reserves to solve its problems in the financial sector, Kudrin said.