Read on Twitter
I see this a bit differently from the minister. Russia did a serious lockdown in the first wave. The economy did not fall by much (-3.5% forecast GDP fall in 2021) for structural reasons. Russia's economy is dominated by sectors that didn't shut down. (1/n) https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1336229423310311424
In particular, Russia has an underdeveloped SME and services sector, because of a lack of structural reform. The dominance of oil and gas has fallen, but natural resources processing and agriculture are big contributors. Russia's weaknesses were strengths in a pandemic (2/n)
The stimulus package was not that big, about 3% of GDP, with a bit of double counting. One key was the high state component in Russian employment, c. 40%, so unemployment only rose from 4.5% to 6.7%. That and transfers meant consumption spending did not fall much (3/n)
We are still waiting for the full new stimulus package, which is mixed up with the National Projects and the National Goals. My personal sense is that Russia will stick with its overly tight fiscal policy which has been a drag on growth (4/4)
