Conference on European Economic Integration (CEEI) 2011

“European Integration in a Global Economic Setting – China,  Russia and CESEE”

Jointly organized by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) and Suomen Pankki – Finlands Bank

René Nyberg, Vienna, 21 November 2011

Dinner speech

At one of the better panels of the Sochi Investment Forum last September, Sberbank’s chief economist Xenia Yudayeva noted that Russian industrial policy is nothing but social policy cherishing myths. Stability has become an absolute value. She said the Russian economy has only three fortes: Sirye i zemlya that is, raw materials and arable land, as well as a good mathematical education, although, in her view, existing institutions prevent exploitation of this third potential.