On June 21, Economic Development Minister Andrei Belousov participated in a briefing, Roadmap to a Better Investment Environment, held as part of the second day of the 17th St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
Andrei Belousov said in his speech that Russia is currently one of the centres experiencing an ongoing inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) despite a general trend to withdraw capital from developing markets. The Minister went on to say that a sustainable and reasonably high FDI inflow, at least for Russia, has been observed since the third quarter of 2012.
In response to a question from journalists about the volume of capital outflow, the Minister said that the Ministry of Economic Development has left its capital outflow forecast for 2013 unchanged at $30 billion. According to Andrei Belousov, capital outflow in 2013 has so far been lower than in the same period of last year, and is expected to come in below last year’s figures by late 2013.
Andrei Belousov also took part in an open panel discussion, WTO Impact and Enhancing Russia’s Industrial Competitiveness.
The Economic Development Minister said that the benefits from Russia's accession to the WTO have fallen short of the country's expectations. That said, Andrei Belousov noted that the fact that during its WTO accession process, Russia successfully negotiated a relatively high level of tariff protection compared to other countries.
Source: Ministry of Economic Development
