Nikolay Dzys-Voynarovskiy
High School of Economics experts on the closure of McDonalds: “Reasonable economics policies are not being discussed”
Another three McDonald’s restaurants were closed in Russia today: one in Yekaterinburg and two in Voronezh. According to today’s survey “Comments on the state and business,” complied by the Development Center of the High School of Economics, it is not only an instance of sanctions wars, but also a sign that there is a lack of normal economic policies in Russia.
The Development Center is conservative about the perspectives of import replacement as the driving force of economics. Nonetheless, they would advise the Russian government to set up the production of banned foreign goods by foreign companies working on Russian territory. “However, the growing, absolutely non-political complains against the companies who are successfully working in Russia under foreign brands (such as McDonalds and Auchan) show that such reasonable options for economic policies are not being seriously discussed at the moment,” writes the Development Center.
Today the Ministry of Economical Development decreased its prediction of the growth of Russian GDP in 2014 from 2% to 1%. This is not surprising, taking another tendency the DC noted into account.
Another economical driving force glitches in June-July – export started falling. First, the supplies of oil are starting to grow faster than the demand for it on the world oil market. The reason: on one hand, the growth of extraction outside the OPEK and its reestablishment in Iraq and Libya, on the other – the slowing of economic growth in the Eurozone and, accordingly, lower demand on Russian fuel. Second, the export of Russian defense products has been subject to sanctions. This resulted in the DC lowering the export prognosis for 2014 by 3% – to $500 bn.
Food sanctions may add 1 percent point and more to Russian inflation, writes DC, and this was de facto confirmed today by the Ministry of Economical Development, having increased their predictions of inflation in 2014 from 6% to 7-7,5%.
Source: Slon
Translated by Mariya Shcherbinina
