Putin says Russia copes with pandemic-linked economic downturn

MOSCOW, Sep 21 (PRIME) -- The Russian economy has recovered fully from a downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic despite global instability, President Vladimir Putin told the government on Tuesday.

“In spite of an instable situation in the global economy, complicated processed on the global markets, the Russian economy has recovered. We used to say not long ago that the economy had ‘generally recovered’, and now we can say that it has fully recovered,” he said.

“Gross domestic products (GDP) reached the pre-crisis level in the first seven months (of 2021). The decline, sparked by the coronavirus epidemic, has been overcome fully,” he said, adding that the pre-pandemic level of employment was reached in July.

However, Putin suggested that the global economic environment should be take into account while designing the budget for the next three years.

The government should make progress in all the key national goals by 2024, the president also said.

“Economic growth is a basis for successful implementation of state plans and projects and for reaching the national development goals. I want to stress that by 2024 we should achieve significant and noticeable progress in all the national goals,” he said, adding that the tasks should be mirrored by the budget.

Putin mentioned full accessibility of primary healthcare as one of the main goals that should be reached by 2024.

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