President Vladimir Putin is holding his now traditional pre-holidays marathon press conference on Thursday. The event comes amid heightened tensions between Russia and Western nations over NATO expansion and Ukraine.

• 09:41 GMT

  A question next about support for small businesses in Russia, which have been impacted the most by Covid-19 restrictions.

• 09:39 GMT

  With all that having been said, inflation control remains a high priority for the government, Putin said. Other nations had relaxed their macroeconomic policies to stimulate the economy. The US, in particular, was facing serious inflation to which its citizens and businesses were not accustomed. There was a risk that inflationary pressure would undermine the economic recovery.

  Russia has inflation problems too, he said, and the Central Bank was counteracting it, even if some major players were unhappy about that, he said. He felt that the bank’s policies were well in what he called the ‘Goldilocks’ area in terms of balancing macroeconomic stability with the promotion of economic growth.

• 09:34 GMT

  Our budget for the next year is certainly socially oriented, Putin assured the questioner, going into detail about spending plans by the federal and regional governments for the likes of healthcare.

  The government’s economy support programs in 2020 and 2021 were tailored to preserve industries that generate many jobs, indirectly helping the people employed by those businesses. There had also been direct payments of various kinds to the most vulnerable citizens, he said.

  The overarching goal of helping those who need help most had not changed, Putin said.

• 09:29 GMT

  The next question was about social spending and whether it would be boosted due to the pandemic, in the light of inflation concerns.

• 09:28 GMT

  Putin acknowledged the difficulties with raising vaccination rates in Russia, but said some other developed nations, such as Germany, which has one of the best healthcare systems in Europe, face the same challenge.

  The government has set an immunity level of at least 80% and hopes to reach it next year. But other nations have more ambitious targets of as much as 99%, he said.

• 09:26 GMT

  Addressing the issue of the labor market, Putin said the nation needed to increase its workforce to ensure economic development. A strong labor force was a key driver of growth, he said.

  Other drivers were infrastructure and productivity, and Russia invested heavily in both of those areas, he added.

• 09:24 GMT

  The Russian economy turned out to be better prepared for the shock of the pandemic than some other nations in the world’s top-20-economies club. Russia’s didn’t dip as much, he said, and our recovery was faster than that of some other of those countries.

  Putin offers some economic statistics, explaining that there had been good performance in some key industries, including the export-benefiting agriculture and construction sectors. There had been some increase in real wages too, but, on the downside, there had also been an increase in inflation and some challenges in the labor market.

  He offered more metrics detailing Russia’s foreign trade, national debt, and foreign reserves, which, he said, indicate a healthy macroeconomic situation. Some worrisome news is coming in terms of life expectancy due to the pandemic, he warned.

  Overall, the government’s performance was, he said, “Let’s put it in a humble way, satisfactory.”

• 09:17 GMT

  Putin sounded amused: “So many questions from you alone! If I answer them all, we might as well wrap up the conference.”

• 09:15 GMT

  There was an opening series of questions from Interfax about the Covid-19 pandemic and how it was affecting the Russian economy. Among them: “Is full vaccination [across the nation] what will be required for economic recovery?”

 

 

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