Official website of the President of Russia

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President Vladimir Putin: Dear Mr Director,

Dear colleagues.

Allow me once more to wish you a warm welcome to Moscow. I am very happy to meet you personally. As you know, Russia supported your candidacy to such an important position in the IMF. I must say that in Russia, we have had very constructive relations with the fund throughout the period of our cooperation. I believe that Russia has appealed to the fund eight times and received support of $22 billion. And these funds were used in Russia to carry out market transformations in the economy, and create conditions for the economy to grow.

We know that the fund continues to follow closely the development of the situation in the Russian economy. We are grateful to you for your positive assessment of what is happening in the economy. I also know of a discussion that is going on between experts from the fund and representatives of the Central Bank of Russia and the Government of the Russian Federation on several nuances of development of the economy in the Russian Federation. And I am prepared to talk to you about these issues and problems.

We are interested in relations with the fund in the area that concerns Russia, and in cooperation with the fund in the world as a whole, particularly in countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

We know the great attention that the fund gives to the support of international finances, and we will support your efforts in this direction.

You are aware of the growing capabilities of the Russian economy and the financial system. We fulfil our debt obligations to the fund regularly and on time. We intend to do this in the future.

Of course, we also have the ability to pay off our debts to the fund and to the Paris club of creditors before schedule. And in the second case these obligations and our plans may of course be greater than in relations with the fund. We are prepared to discuss this topic as well. Of course, our considerations and interests are also dictated by the desire to reduce state expenditure related to servicing these debts, i.e. to reduce our expenditure on paying interest, Furthermore, significantly reducing our debt obligations to the fund, which will become less than Russia’s contribution to nominal capital, will make it possible to use these resources effectively and avoid the use of tools in international financial practice, which we believe are connected with the frequent incorrect us of debt obligations.

We make a significant contribution to the funds efforts to fight poverty in the world. As you know, Russia occupies first place in the world in writing off debts to the countries that are poorest in terms of GDP.

As for writing off debts in absolute values, we occupy the third place after Japan and France. Applying these rules to countries with average incomes is a separate topic, and I will be glad to talk to you about this.

In short, we are very happy to see you, and we have many points of contact and spheres of cooperation.

Rodrigo de Rato: Thank you, Mr President!

It is a great honour for me to have the opportunity to meet the President of the Russian Federation. This is my first visit to Russia as the director of the IMF. In the past, however, I made many opportunities to come to Russia as the Finance Minister of Spain. Since then I have kept many strong, durable ties with many members of Government, who are part of the economic team.

As you, Mr President, said correctly, the IMF and the Russian Government have worked together very closely and very successfully. This has allowed the Russian economy to overcome the difficult economic situation that arose at the end of the 1990s, and move towards strong and durable economic growth. We are well aware of President’s Putin large-scale plan to double Russia’s GDP over 10 years. And we think that this is thanks to the reforms and the efforts that have already been made.

Extensive additional work will be required in future. Today we can see that the Russian economy is on a very stable path of major development. And we believe that now is a favourable moment which should be used, using the economic growth which is taking place, to realise the large-scale reforms that President Putin has planned.

Russia must conduct very important reforms. And to implement these reforms fully, it is necessary to conduct them under the supervision of the President. We acknowledge the achievement of the country’s monetary and credit authorities of the country in efforts to strengthen the bank sector. We think that the intensive schedule that was established for banks to receive new licenses should be support, and that it will benefit the economy. We believe that a strong, transparent and effective banking system will enable the further active and favourable development of Russia.

As for monetary and credit policy, we can see the efforts that the Central Bank is making to reduce inflationary expectations. We believe that they should be accompanied by a strict budget policy. This will meet the requirements of Russian society. It is in the interests of the Russian people to keep expenditure under control and use it effectively. And in this sense, we believe that one of the priorities in future is to conduct structure reform and modernise the administrative system of Russia not just at federal level, but at regional level as well.