Alexei Kudrin believes the peak of the global economic crisis will shift to the end of this year or even the start of next, and recovery may take at least three years. In an interview with BBC, the Russian finance minister said the crisis has proved more severe and longer than expected, and world trade has already fallen by half. In his view, stronger protectionism will only delay recovery and could set the world economy back several years.
Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin believes that the peak of the economic crisis will shift from the middle to the end of this year or even to the beginning of next year.In an interview with the BBC television company, the minister said that even over the past two months the views of leading world analysts on the depth of the crisis and its duration have changed. “We will still face very serious problems, and recovery will be slower. It will take longer. Therefore, I think there will be no way out of the crisis sooner than in three years,” Kudrin said.
The minister sees one of the ways out of the crisis in reducing protectionism. Protectionist measures could set back the development of the world economy by several years, and perhaps even more, he believes.
– Right now, during the crisis, world trade has shrunk by half - this is the strongest blow to the world economy. If protectionism intensifies, the crisis will intensify as well, the minister said.
Kudrin admitted that he had not expected the global crisis to be as serious and prolonged as it turned out to be. The head of the Finance Ministry noted that even now the full depth of the crisis is not yet entirely clear.