MOSCOW, FEBRUARY 20, RIA NOVOSTI - Russia has ample opportunities to increase its gross domestic product by an annual far exceeding 10 per cent. That has been so for the preceding four years, Andrei Illarionov, presidential economic adviser, said to newsmen. He sees the smallest possible growth rate as 11.5 per cent-that is the current economic progress rate in Kazakhstan, a country whose economic situation equals Russia's minus the latter's beneficial geography. Kazakhstan is land-locked, and vitally depends on foreign and domestic supplies-and so on transport.
World developments lucrative to Russia were guaranteeing a 10 per cent economic growth rate last year, according to computations of the Moscow-based Economic Analytical Institute. In fact, the rate was a mere 7.3 per cent. That means negative factors were prominent-in particular, inefficient economic policies, pointed out Mr. Illarionov.
High petroleum prices accounted for 2 per cent out of the total 7.3 in last year's Russian economic progress, Hermann Gref, Minister of Economic Development and Trade, said to a news conference, yesterday. He ascribed another 2 per cent to the federal government's sound economic policy. Increasing capital investment and credit resources brought the remaining 3.3 per cent.
