ST. PETERSBURG, June 5 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Friday it was inevitable that bad loans in the banking system would create a second wave in the financial crisis.
"A second wave of the crisis is clearly inevitable. But we will be able to resolve this by means of recapitalization of banks," Kudrin, who is also a deputy prime minister, told the Vesti 24 TV channel.
The minister said the wave would be triggered by a failure to return loans to banks. The problem of outstanding and non-returned debts emerged last fall, when the global financial crisis reached Russia.
Kudrin earlier forecasted that the bad debts in the Russian banking system could grow to 10% of the loan portfolio, while some experts have predicted the figure could reach 20% by the end of the year.
Speaking Friday on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, he said the ruble rate would remain stable this year at around 30 to the dollar.
"On the whole, I think we will have a stable ruble," Kudrin said.
He also said that Russia's national debt would not exceed 15% of GDP over the next few years, noting that it had accounted for some 6% of GDP when the financial crisis began last October.
On inflation, Kudrin said the government had no plans to change its forecast of 13% for 2009.
"Today we can say for sure that there is a greater chance of inflation being lower than this," Kudrin said.
He said Russia's Central Bank could cut its key lending rate to 10% in 2010.
"If inflation reaches 10% (the basic forecast for 2010), the refinancing rate may be cut to 10% in the middle or by the end of next year," Kudrin told journalists at the forum.
He added that the refinancing rate had to be lowered carefully because of uncertainty in the GDP and inflation forecasts for 2010.
The Central Bank announced on Thursday that following a slowdown in consumer price growth it would from Friday further cut the refinancing rate by 0.5 percentage points to 11.5% per annum.
