20/7 Tass 231
NOVO-OGAREVO, July 20 (Itar-Tass) —— The Central Bank of Russia estimated that direct investments in Russia exceeded 27 billion dollars in the first half of 2011, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at a meeting of the governmental committee for supervision over foreign investments here on Wednesday.
“According to preliminary estimates of the Central Bank of Russia, more than 27 billion dollars of direct investments were made in Russian economy in the first half of this year,” he said. Putin added that the sum of investments is higher than that for the same period in 2010 (19.4 billion dollars), and a little bit lower than that for the same period in the pre-crisis year of 2007 – 29.6 billion dollars.
“The current main task is to keep up this positive tendency, meanwhile with the focus on the quality of long-term investments,” the prime minister went on to say. The Russian general economic situation, economic restoration, the measures, which are being taken to improve the business climate, give reasons to hope for this progress, he noted. “I am confident that we will have all chances to reach the level of 60-70 billion dollars of direct annual foreign investments in the future. We will be able to provide a positive balance of the capital inflow and outflow,” Putin underlined.