PM opens government meeting on reviving Russian financial sector

The poor condition of the financial sector is slackening the diversification of the Russian economy, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov announced at a government meeting today. The meeting will focus on ways to develop financial markets in Russia. According to Kasyanov, in order to keep up a good pace of economic recovery it is necessary to change the structure of the economy in favor of the manufacturing sector. Kasyanov pointed out the necessity of attaining annual growth in the manufacturing sector at 5 or 6 percent, maintaining annual growth in the oil and gas sector at 10 percent.

At present, the bulk of investments comes from company funds, and may be afforded only by companies operating in the oil and gas sector. Such sectors as machine manufacturing do not have sufficient resources for upgrading its production lines, the policymaker said.