Minister: Russia’s consumer demand to grow slightly in 2016

MOSCOW, Oct 23 (PRIME) -- Russia’s consumer demand will grow slightly in 2016, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said at a conference on Friday.

“We suppose that next year…there will be growth albeit a small one of retail turnover and consumer demand,” he said.

He also said that Russia’s budget for 2015 is not balanced.

“It does not matter if we have a minus 3% or minus 2.5% (budget deficit) this year, it does not matter that we had surplus a couple of years ago. The important thing is that the share of our productive expenditures, investment costs, our direct investments into human capital is constantly falling and the share of non-productive expenditures is rising,” Ulyukayev said.

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