Russia has no strategic plan for economic crisis: Minister

Moscow, Dec 18 (IANS/EFE) Russian Economic Development Minister Alexey Ulyukayev has admitted that the government does not have a strategic plan to overcome the economic crisis in the country, noting that its responses to the challenges of the moment are "reactive".

Ulyukayev's remarks came in an interview published Thursday by the Vedomosti newspaper.

"We have many plans to replace imports and for priority projects and this is useful, but it is tactical reaction. We need a strategic plan," Ulyukayev acknowledged.

According to the minister, the government must "change the situation on the chessboard".

"Cutting the budget by 10 percent is not a plan," Ulyukayev warned in reference to proposals made by the finance ministry.

He described the current situation of the Russian economy as a "perfect storm" in which it is at the crossroads of three crises: structural, cyclical consumption and geopolitics.

"Regarding the structural crisis, it is the result of not completing economic reforms," Ulyukayev said.

The minister also warned that the US economic sanctions on Russia because of Crimea acceding to it could last for "decades".

"This problem may simply be a threat, but we have to live with it for a long time," he said.

The collapse of the Russian rouble is a mirror reflecting the crisis undermining the country's entire economy, which has been devastated by the plunge in oil prices as well as by international sanctions and the absence of structural reforms.

While the government of Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev blamed it all on the rouble, which has lost half of its value, and external factors, other causes exist as well, such as failure of the economic model and poor management by the government.

--IANS/EFE

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