MOSCOW, February 20 (RIA Novosti) - The head of an unofficial shadow Cabinet in Russia, known as "the people's government," said Monday that the economy had made no tangible progress in 2005.
MP Gennady Semigin, the leader of the nationalist Russian Patriots party, said that "no positive, qualitative, powerful, structural changes occurred in Russia's socio-economic development" last year, but that industrial production had continued to slow while inflation had gathered pace.
According to Semigin, economic growth has seen a steady decline in the past few years, from 7.3% in 2003 to 6.4% in 2005, and year-end inflation reached 12.7% in 2005, though officially it was put at 10.9%.
Speaking of negative economic trends, Semigin also mentioned further increases in the prices of food, gasoline, medical services and public utilities and a consistently high employment rate (estimated last year at 5.6 million people, or 7.7% of the economic population).
The lawmaker criticized the government for accumulating windfall oil revenues in the Stabilization Fund instead of spending them on social programs, and for failing to reform public services, such as health, education and housing.
He also called for alternative regional policies to level out socio-economic inequalities in the provinces and to boost their development.
The "people's government," formed last March by members of 15 opposition parties, includes 22 "ministries" and four committees. One of its declared goals is to "develop and implement social and economic projects in various sectors at the federal and interregional levels."
