Russia yet to reverse income inequality trend – Rosstat head

(Interfax – BRYANSK, May 16, 2013) 3.4% GDP growth in Russia is good, but there is still income inequality that proves the Russian economy has some flaws, Rosstat head Alexander Surinov told a press conference in Bryansk.

“GDP growth rates have shrunk but there is still 3.4% growth. I have been in the statistics business for a long time. 3% growth was deemed very good or even magnificent for the Soviet economy of the 1980s. Certainly, we would like not only to preserve growth rates but also to make them higher than in the previous years. But the objective is unattainable sometimes,” he said. The press conference was dedicated a two-day meeting of the regional council of heads of Federal State Statistics Service departments in the Central Federal District.

Real incomes of the population have been growing steadily because “some salaries are coming out of the shadows,” he said.

“The contingent with incomes smaller than the subsistence minimum reduced” by 10 million from 2005 through 2012, Surinov said. He stressed that the consumption standard had changed with additional commodities and services.

“That is a significant and positive fact. But there are negative things, too. We have failed to reverse the income inequality trend. The share of 80% of the poor in the total incomes of society dipped and the share of 20% of the rich grew over that period. This is a proof that the Russian economy has certain problems. We are on the same journey as American society, which was based on inequality from the very start. Europeans have a slightly different culture: the share of their poor in the total incomes is much higher than here and the share of the rich is much smaller,” Surinov said.