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Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Alfa Bank's Natalia Orlova gives press conference in Novosibirsk

As part of his visit to the Siberian region, Natalia Orlova, the chief economist at Alfa Bank and director of the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis, held a press conference in Novosibirsk.

The conference involved discussions on the economic situation in Russia and Europe and a forecast for 2014.

Orlova said that the mood in the global markets has deteriorated since the middle of the year, due mostly to a change in the rhetoric of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Between 2008 and 2013, the Fed saw its balance sheet grow from $1 trillion to $3.6 trillion. According to Orlova, the expected tightening of monetary policy has led to an outflow of capital from emerging markets, making it more likely the output of the exchange rate of 33 rubles per dollar at the end of 2013.

Since the beginning of 2013, much of the stock market has been in negative territory, while oil currency has been more stable in the last few months.

In regards to the Euro, Orlova said that the fundamental problem is a high level of debt in the peripheral countries as well as a reluctance to stimulate growth through the adoption of the biggest risks in key countries.

In the Asian region, Orlova said to pay attention to China, which showed a slowdown in growth in 2013, reflecting the structural problems of the economy as having too large a share of investment and low share of consumption.

The lecture focused much attention on the Russian economy, which has also slowed. The country has a small ratio of retail loans, totaling approximately 12 percent of GDP. It is expected that the credit load will grow faster in sectors that are not leaders in labor productivity growth.