Presidential Aide to come up with economic panacea

It is said in the Presidential Aide Andrey Illarionov's report "The Formula of Success: How a Russian Economic Miracle is Possible" that the countries that managed to cut back federal spending in the overall GDP started to grow swiftly after that. The Japanese "economic miracle" in the 1950-70s was connected with such a maneuver in the economic policy, just as the Korean, Taiwanese and Hong-Kong "miracles" of the 1960-90s. Whereas in Russia for most of the 1990s state pending exceeded 50 percent of the GDP. No wonder that it is in this period that Russia had been suffering from a nearly intermittent economic crisis. After the 1998 financial meltdown federal spending was cut back to 33 percent, and in 1999 the Russian economy began to recover. In 2000 the economic growth was 9 percent. But after that federal spending started to expand again coupled with increasing taxes. As a result, economic growth rates started to decline again. At the end of 2002 the GDP growth rate was around 4 percent.

According to analysts, Russia's optimal federal spending is roughly 19-23 percent, while the current level in 35 percent. Therefore, according to the Presidential Aide, Russia's brisk economic growth is possible provided an adequate economic policy is in place that is aimed at cutting back national expenditures. The major tools that can make economic growth a reality are reducing the share of federal spending in the GDP, tax cuts, deficit-free budget as well as ceasing to pile up both internal and external debts, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper reported.