Russia Economy

Medvedev lauds gov't's efforts to handle economic crisis China View (Xinhua) — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday praised the government's efforts to cope with the current economic crisis and said it was too early to curtail anti-crisis measures. Medvedev, at a government meeting on economic issues, said the Economic Development Ministry had noticed signs of recovery. click to read complete article

Russia not yet in sustainable recovery: Medvedev Agence France Presse — President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday it was too early for Russia to scrap stimulus measures, even if signs of recovery from the country's worst economic crisis in a decade were beginning to appear. "These so far are just general signs of improvement, we can't speak of sustainable positive dynamics, all the more so because these signs are not as significant in scale as we'd like them to be," Medvedev said. click to read complete article

Russia state and state-aided banks drive lending Reuters — Russia's state banks and those who received subordinated credits from the government were responsible for 50 percent of the corporate loans made in the country in the first half, data showed on Wednesday. The government has been counting on banks to help Russia out of recession, calling on them to step up lending and to pass on official interest rate cuts to end-borrowers. Of the 9.2 trillion roubles ($295 billion) lent to Russian companies in the first six months of the year, 2.7 trillion roubles came from state-controlled banks and 1.9 trillion roubles was lent by privately-owned recipients of government funds through subordinated loans. click to read complete article