http://www.rbcnews.com/free/20080508124003.shtml

the evil empire on the rise again!

LOL ... did not see this coming .. Russia is fast catching up !

Oil is at $126 and the dollar is in the sewer. If Medvedev lets the Ruble appreciate more it will be even faster growth, but they are afraid of inflation and costs eating away at industrial competitiveness. There is no reason why the Kremlin cant generate 10-12% real growth like China, but they are afraid to inflate. Nominal growth is already 25%+ a year thanks to the crap dollar.

If Medvedev lets the Ruble appreciate more it will be even faster growth, but they are afraid of inflation and costs eating away at industrial competitiveness. There is no reason why the Kremlin cant generate 10-12% real growth like China, but they are afraid to inflate. Nominal growth is already 25%+ a year thanks to the crap dollar.

HUH? You can't affect real growth by manipulating exchange rates. Exchange rates affect nominal growth vs. a base currency, so an appreciating ruble against the dollar would only cause nomial GDP to raise against the dollar. Also, an appreciating ruble would not increase inflation, it would reduce it by making imports cheaper. It would however decrease competitiveness. In fact Russia is always at risk from the so called "Dutch disease." It is a large exporter of natural resources, and that always causes upward pressure on the currency, which in turn can lead to non-oil exports being squeezed out. So in effect countries like Russia who are huge energy exporters yet also wish to posess a strong manufacturing base need to always be careful so that the oil sector does not choke the industrial sector through currency effect. THAT is why Russia is loath to let the ruble rise, not because of inflation.

Hello 6th place, next up, the Germans. Irkut is absolutely right that Kremlin is holding back with worries of inflation, who can forget the 2000% inflation rates of the 90s and even though the situation would never come to this nowadays its still on peoples minds. Also means per capita PPP is slowly itching its way up to the 20 grand mark.

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The food crisis is gonna hit Russia like a brick wall. More so than most western countries because Russia got a large population dragging behind financially.

And it's driven by high fuel prices. Not that the rich elite leadership give a cr4p about ordinary people.

Watch the news, bread queue and food stamps will make a return.


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lol, this isnt the Soviet era anymore, our agriculture base is stronger than ever.

And for those who doubt the economic boom happening, IMF estimates that in the next 5 years Russian NOMINAL GDP will grow to 3.5 trillion. That is a 168% increase, all thanks to current policy and the weak dollar. Of course by than PPP will not be in our favor, but that will mean Russia has finally recovered.

IMF link

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Russia is a food exporter now, unlike the USSR. Food should not be a problem.

Sure it's an impressive GDP number. Almost four times higher than that of tiny Sweden... So what if the population is 16 times larger when the oh so important elite is getting rich.

I might come out sounding negative but capitalism without proper social responsibility is a breeder for national instability with growing support and activism by unwanted commu-leftist organisations. You should know this.

Something Russia need to stay the hell away from.

Russia has more people with weak living standards than either Germany and the UK which in a globalised world finds it more difficult for each day to absorb rising consumer prices. Tell me why should Russian farmers sell their products cheap to Russian producers when they can instead export and get the much higher market price? Understand how this works.

When the country need to subsidise a large mass of people since they can't pay their own food or health etc the economy will take a hit. Aid money that could have been spent on something else. Like job stimulating tax cuts.

That's why looking at the GDP number is like looking at the cover of a book.
It really says nothing about the story.

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salaries are rising at twice the rate of real GDP growth so dont you worry about income inequality.

When the nominal GDP is set to break 3.5 trillion in the next 5 years I think you would need to hide out in a cave to not see standard of living improvements.

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So it's

1.America
2.Japan
3.China
4.Germany
5.Russia
6.France
7.UK

It's not so much the aspiring rise of the new economies Russia & China but the downward spiral of the old European economies especially the UK which still has the crappy pound as its currency, in the years to come you'll see India and Brazil climbing hard and surpassing the UK, the cesspit of the GDP stakes!


"if Christiannity and Turkish occupation hadn't stopped the Greek civilization from its advanced progress in mathematics , chemistry and physics the Greeks could have been to space 600 years before the Americans"
(Arthur C. Clarke)

6 words for the Turks to remember:-

Eurofighter TBA (Air dominance fighter)
S-300PMU-1 (unrivalled SAM technology)
SCALP (First Strike capability)
Leopard GR2 (Latest Gen Competitive MBT)
ERIEYE (AEW&C capability)
Type 214 (has AIP technology )

God you're so dumb, do you know what PPP means? The UK is ahead of France in PPP.

Europe's first true UCAV - first flight 2010

Well if PPP is taking into account alot of developing countries like india would fall high onto the list aswell...


__________________________________________
No Matter Who Wins, our troops are always in Good Hands!

Dont worry, Russia will overtake the Brits in both PPP and nominal in half a decade. They already decided to double the Kazakstan/Russia pipeline capacity in the next 4 years so the cash is going to be rolling in.

A big problem for Russia is to not let the PPP fall behind too much, which is exactly what is happening in Britain today. Their nominal is showing a healthy rise but their PPP is in a slump, Russia has to avoid such a fate.

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The average UK citizen is far richer than the average Russian citizen. You just can`t take this figure and that figure and imply something is better. GDP is made up of a lot of components. An example is population. Obviously, a country with a larger population will have a larger gdp cateris paribus. This does not mean the citizens of the country with the larger gdp is doing any better or much better.

Thanks for explaining that, I mean who would have actually guessed per capita has anything to do with the population.

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a rich russia is only good for germany

they can be very usefull partner in 2050 when they reach our total gdp (43 years of same growth offcourse)

Quote: Thanks for explaining that, I mean who would have actually guessed per capita has anything to do with the population.

Fantastic. Now you fully understand why such stats(when viewed individually) means nothing when the average UK citizen is far richer than the average Russian citizen.

lol, Justin GDP has far more meaning that you are led to believe, even though sometimes it can misrepresent growth, in the Russian case its as easy to read as a children's book.

In terms of total PPP, Russia will pass the Germans in 6, maybe 7 years.


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Russia's future is much more uncertain, you guys should read this:

 

Russia's uneasy handover

Feb 28th 2008
From The Economist print edition

The new Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, faces an unpalatable legacy

 

MOST elections have an element of uncertainty about them. Not Russia's. This weekend, barring a miracle, Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Putin's handpicked successor, will win the Russian presidency by a landslide. The emasculation of the country's fragile democracy—from the Kremlin's monopoly over television to the crushing of any serious opposition candidates—is enough to ensure that. But so is Mr Putin's popularity: he enjoys an approval rating above 70%.

This figure is artificially exaggerated, as is to be expected in a country with no democratic tradition, almost no free media and no independent power centres. But there is little reason to doubt that many, perhaps most, Russians are satisfied with Mr Putin's apparently successful eight years in office and willing to accept his choice of Mr Medvedev. Yet Mr Medvedev's chances of maintaining this level of satisfaction seem remote.

 

Mr Putin's reputation rests on four chief claims advanced by his supporters, both at home and abroad. The first is that he brought political stability after the chaos of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. Second, he imposed peace in Chechnya and across the north Caucasus. Third, he restored Russia's rightful position as an influential world power. Fourth (and most important), he presided over sustained rapid economic growth and a sharp rise in Russians' living standards.

Claims of straw

Yet a closer look reveals big flaws in all these claims. Russia's purported political stability rests on a perversion of the normal meaning of democracy and an excessive concentration of power in the Kremlin that has wiped out regional autonomy and fostered corruption, thought by businessmen to be worse now than in the Yeltsin years. The so-called peace in Chechnya has been won by handing control of the republic to a former rebel, Ramzan Kadyrov; the rest of the north Caucasus is more troubled than ever (see article).

As for rising influence and higher living standards, both depend critically on the economy, which Mr Putin touts as his proudest achievement. Average annual growth rates for GDP of 7%, and for real wages in double digits, are certainly impressive at first blush. And it is true that, from early in his presidency, Mr Putin did much to restore macroeconomic stability through fiscal and monetary discipline and the appointment of liberals to the main economic posts—though, given Russia's debt at the time, he had little alternative. Even so, during the Putin presidency growth has been lower than in most other ex-Soviet countries. Moreover, it has relied heavily on surging commodity prices, especially for oil and gas (see article).

Russia's consumption splurge has, in short, been driven by a natural-resource boom. The competitiveness of the non-oil economy has eroded sharply since the devaluation of 1998. The concept of manufacturing for export scarcely exists, outside the arms industry. By the end of his first term, Mr Putin had abandoned most of his tentative attempts at economic liberalisation. Worse, the long-drawn-out Yukos affair, which began in mid-2003, presaged not only an assault on property rights and the rule of law but also a resurgence of state control over, and interference in, the economy. Russia's own history offers powerful testimony of the harmful effects that state intervention tends to wreak.

Even macroeconomic stability, the final legacy from Mr Putin, is under threat. Inflation has already crept up to double figures. It could rise further if the government gives way to growing pressure to spend more from the stabilisation fund, which has so far acted as a useful absorber of oil-and-gas revenues. The trade balance is deteriorating as imports boom. A weakening world economy will not only soften demand for primary commodities, but may even lead their giddy prices to fall.

A grim inheritance, Dmitry

In retrospect, Mr Putin was lucky to inherit a recovering economy and an incipient oil- and commodity-price boom from Mr Yeltsin. Mr Medvedev is in a much worse predicament. He will find it far harder than Mr Putin did to do his job as president at the same time as retaining the support of ordinary Russians. He will take over weakened institutions and a cash pile that promises nothing but headaches as people fight to spend it. The economy is simultaneously overheating and facing the threat of imminent global slowdown.

Mr Medvedev is a canny lawyer who owes his political career entirely to Mr Putin, for whom he worked in St Petersburg in the early 1990s (see article). He comes with two points in his favour: unlike Mr Putin and most other cronies in the Kremlin, he has no background in the security services, not least because he is too young (just 42) to have worked for them in Soviet times; and, as he has confirmed in two recent speeches, his instincts are to favour liberalisation and a reining-in of the state's role in the economy. Unfortunately, his failure to reform Russia's gas monopoly, Gazprom, when he was its chairman, offers less reason for hope.

Worse, Mr Putin will probably still be around as prime minister (he stood down as president only because the constitution sets a limit of two consecutive terms). Nobody can predict exactly how this duo will work, although Mr Putin has made it clear that he intends to be highly active, not least in foreign and defence policy. For his part, Mr Medvedev has promised to stick to the “successful” policies of his predecessor.

In some countries, a division of power might be welcome, not least to avert the risk of too much accruing to one man. But in Russia, where the notion of a tsar survived the Soviet Union, divided power is usually problematic. Maybe Mr Putin will slowly fade out, building up Mr Medvedev as a strong successor. More likely, either Mr Medvedev will be a figurehead atop a strong Putin government, perhaps an interim leader before Mr Putin returns as president; or he (and those around him) will set about using the president's immense powers to try to sap Mr Putin's strength. Either way, a double-headed government promises to be a source of extra instability. At a time when the challenges for the next president are harder than ever, that is the last thing Russia needs.

 

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=10765938

The only uncertainty is by how much oil prices will spike in the next year, Russian growth is almost a decade long with no end in sight. Contrary to popular belief Russia is actually investing much of that oil money into other economic sectors, prime example is the development of nanotechnolgy.

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Russia could never grow as fast as the other soviet republics because Russia was much richer to start. Expecting Russia to produce Ukrainian growth rates is like expecting the US to match Chinese growth rates. Ukraine was only half as developed as Russia to begin with.

Oil does not even account for half the growth in Russia. The Economist is simply wrong. Additionally, for an overheating economy it is kind of funny how the growth rate continues to grow. 8% now, up from 7%, with manufacturing growing faster than the energy sector.

I should also note that people have been saying the Russian economy is overheating since 2001 and the same has been said of China for the past 20 years.

Even with all the growth the nominal is still lower than where the Soviets where in '73.

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Quote: So it's 1.America 2.Japan 3.China 4.Germany 5.Russia 6.France 7.UK

While I agree France's GDP is higher than the UK when measured in Euro, Russia's GDP lags far behind France when measured in Euro.

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De Gaulle to the General Koenig, Norman hero of Bir Hakeim: "Hear and tell your troops: the whole of France is watching you, you are our pride."[

Wow, it looks like France has a bigger economy than UK; Could explain why French military is better than UK.

thank god for oil eh

Quote: Wow, it looks like France has a bigger economy than UK; Could explain why French military is better than UK.

Two incorrect statements in one post, well done.

Europe's first true UCAV - first flight 2010

With multiple oil & gas projects coming into operation within the next few years and the much higher use of biofuels and other aleternative energy coupled with the lower demand for oil, price of oil is going to hit around 70 dollars in 2 years, when that happens all these nations who rely heavly on oil revenues are going to be struggling just to survive. Maybe the Gulf arab nations are going to be well cushioned still, because they are small, but a giant like Russia is going to be devastated.

Russia will be more than pleased with 70 dollar price per barrel, that just means consumption will increase, basic supply and demand. In fact lower prices will be of benefit to Russia in the long term due to increased oil exports and taking off stress from the refineries, same cant be said for the Arabs.

All that doesnt really matter, oil prices are forecast to hit $200-300 per barrel in the next few years due to the increased demand from the Chinese and Indians. Ill bet that all those Arab states are pulling the oil reserve figures out of their as-, Russia is one of the few trustworthy partners for the West today.

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Filin - Russia has being pumping out oil like crazy in past few years and its reserves are slightly runing low with this kind of hight production .. so whats next?