Among CIS Countries Russia is Last but One for GDP Growth

Among the twelve CIS countries Russia holds last but one place for GDP growth in 2002. As a Rosbalt correspondent reports, this was announced by Russian Presidential Economic Advisor Andrei Illarionov at a press conference today devoted to the year 2002. He said that GDP growth in Russia for 2002 would be 4.1%. Only Kyrgyzstan had a lower figure.

According to Mr Illarionov GDP growth for 2002 was 11% in Kazakhstan, 6% in the Ukraine and Lithuania (Lithuania is not a CIS country but was part of the former Soviet Union). The presidential advisor said that Russia's fall from third place to last but one is due to an increase in government expenditure. 'Expenditure goes up when people try to solve problems at the expense of government control, which they were unable to solve by using economic means,' Mr Illarionov explained. He mentioned Canada as an example where the government is successfully cutting back on government expenditure and taxation. There GDP rose by 4.4%, whereas in other developed countries this figure was less than 2%.