Russia to be heading for "abyss" if growth doesn't speed up - Medvedev
MOSCOW. Sept 26 (Interfax) - Russia will be heading for "an abyss" if it doesn't speed up its economic growth, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has argued.
"In effect, we are at a crossroads. Russia may continue to move forward very slowly with a pace of economic growth close to zero. Or it may take a step forward. The latter alternative implies risks. But following the former scenario with the imaginary possibility of sustaining the welfare that has been achieved is even more dangerous. It is a straight road to losing this welfare. It is a road to an abyss," Medvedev says in an article to appear in Russian business daily Vedomosti on Friday.
"So far investments in the Russia are not large in volume," he says, "and not so much because of specific 'arithmetical' calculations of potential rates of return."
"Investors still have irrational fears of work in an incomprehensible and sometimes unpredictable Russia. They also, quite explicably, mistrust public institutions, including the judiciary and law enforcement, which is particularly sad," the prime minister says.
"I believe that the defense of private property and competition remain our unquestionable political priorities," he says.
