Russia's financial system has shown stress resistance: Finance Day at the RUSSIA EXPO
The plenary session The Financial Sector as a Foundation for the Stability of the Russian Economy was held at the International RUSSIA EXPO as part of Finance Day.
Its participants summarized the results of the last few years for this sector of the economy, discussed the main trends and the launch of new products, as well as assessed the quality of interaction between financial companies and clients. The session was opened by Mikhail Mishustin, Chairman of the Russian Government. He paid special attention to the development of financial literacy of the population.
"This is an extremely important direction, because every person should know how to manage their funds as efficiently as possible, be able to invest and deposit them. This is a significant component, and our task is to help people. The government, together with the Bank of Russia, is paying special attention to improving the competence of citizens in this area. Appropriate general education programs, educational and methodological base have been developed. Over 135,000 teachers have been trained, and Olympiads are organized. In six years, all Russian schoolchildren and college students will have basic knowledge that will help them understand how the financial market works, its essence, peculiarities, risks, and the ability to minimize them", — said Mikhail Mishustin.
The development of our country depends on the level of financial literacy of the population, said Prime Minister. At the same time, finance is the circulatory system of the state, which Russian residents face every day, said Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. Similar issues concern the state, companies and corporations. In this regard, the stability of the financial system directly affects the well-being of people, the head of the department added.
"At the beginning of the 2000s, our finances were extremely unstable: large deficits, debts. Russia's public debt amounted to about 100% of GDP. And the largest part of it was the external debt - to the IMF, world banks. In 2022-2023, Russia's state debt is about 15% of GDP. And the external debt is only 3%. Therefore, the stability of public finances is the key to success", — said Anton Siluanov.
"Do you remember what the queues to the tax offices were like in the 2000s? Today the situation is completely different. The tax office has become a service organization. Taxes can be paid in one click. There are no queues, the principles of competition work. It has become comfortable to pay taxes. We see that with the same level of tax rates, tax collection increases every year" — emphasized Anton Siluanov.
The financial system is also influenced by the inflation rate, said Vladimir Chistyukhin, First Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia.
"Low inflation and ensuring price stability on a long-term horizon is the foundation of stable development of any economy. And we have seen that when we reach our targets, credit becomes more affordable, interest rates are reduced. It is fundamentally important - both borrowers and lenders get additional inclination to realize long-term projects associated with multi-year credit financing. Today this task is more urgent than ever for our country in the period of transformation of the economy, its adaptation to new conditions. It is obvious that the sooner we reach the target indicator, the sooner we will be able to realize complex large-scale projects supported by credit products", — said Vladimir Chistyukhin.
One of the vivid examples of the connection between low inflation and credit availability is mortgage, he noted. In addition, the Central Bank uses various measures to limit the issuance of loans to overcredited borrowers and now the number of such products in the portfolios of banks is decreasing, emphasized Vladimir Chistyukhin. At the same time, there were a number of weak players in the financial market - they did not fulfill their obligations to customers. And the Bank of Russia did a lot of work to identify them and remove them from the market.
"This allowed us to make the financial market much more resilient to shocks. The financial system is ready to meet crisis situations and overcome them", — concluded Vladimir Chistyukhin. The panel session was also attended by Herman Gref, Chairman of the Management Board of Sberbank of Russia, Yury Denisov, Chairman of the Management Board of Moscow Exchange, Vitaly Mutko, Director General of DOM.RF, Sergey Belyakov, President of the Association of Non-State Pension Funds, and other representatives of the financial sector.
The International RUSSIA EXPO is the most important achievements of the country gathered in one place. Throughout the entire period of the Exposition, guests can look forward to cultural events, a rich business and educational program. The expositions of 89 Russian regions, leading federal departments, corporations and public organizations are presented to the visitors. The exposition will be held at VDNH in Moscow until April 12.
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On May 9, a solemn procession in honor of the Great Victory Day took place at the International RUSSIA EXPO.
