MOSCOW, April 25 (RIA Novosti) – Former Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Thursday he had declined President Vladimir Putin’s offer to return to state service as the government lacked a program to break Russia’s dependence on raw material exports.
“The system of half-hearted measures and half reforms is not working today. Russia would therefore be unable to get away from its oil dependence,” Kudrin said at a Q&A conference Putin was holding on Thursday.
“I’m not saying that my opinion is the most important and the most genuine, but there must be a program [of the government’s actions]. Today we do not have a program for steering the country away from oil dependence, in which we would clearly formulate measures, spending, institutional reform and regional development. That’s the problem,” Kudrin said.
“I’m not ready to deal with the economy’s manual guidance and inertia processes,” Kudrin said.
