In his speech before the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (Spief), the president commented that the construction of western sanctions was based on the false thesis that Russia is not sovereign from the economic point of view and that it is vulnerable.
In his opinion, the authors of the sanctions “got so carried away with the construction of myths about Russia’s backwardness and its weakness in the economy and world trade that they themselves seem to have believed it.”
According to Putin, in designing their economic war they overlooked the way this country has changed in recent years, which was the result of planned work to create a sustainable macroeconomic structure, guarantee food security, apply import substitution programs and form a payment system of our own.
However, he acknowledged that the anti-Russian measures created many difficult challenges for the country. In this regard, he explained that some companies continue to have problems with components, several technological solutions are no longer available to Russian companies, and logistics have also been affected.
He emphasized that such challenges, however, opened up new opportunities. “All of this is an incentive to build an economy with full, not partial, technological, manufacturing, human and scientific potential, and with scientific sovereignty,” he said.
The president asserted that the country should stop blindly copying imported products and create world-class goods and services on its own.
If we just repeat ourselves, if we try to substitute foreign products, even with the highest quality copies, we will constantly find ourselves falling behind,” he said.
In his opinion, Russia must go one step further, “create our own competitive technologies, goods and services that can become new world standards.”
He also stressed that maintaining a responsible and balanced macroeconomic policy is another of the bases for the country’s long-term development. He pointed out that, in many ways, that line of work allowed the nation to withstand unprecedented pressure of sanctions.
Putin stressed that among Russia’s key tasks today is the need to create conditions to increase production, increase domestic supplies, restore bank loans and restore final demand that is balanced with supply growth.
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