Natalia Zubarevich: "China is now, apparently, our everything"

About the resilience of the Russian economy

We have fully recovered from the covid crisis.

It's amazing, but the economy turned out to be very resilient and jumped out of the downturns associated with covid.

And from the long recessions of the stagnation crisis – she still did not jump out.

We have not recovered in terms of household income, retail and so on. A classic crisis.

What should have been falling was falling.

And we have fully recovered from the covid crisis. In 2021, all falls were blocked. It's true.

But everything collapsed in the second quarter of 2022. And then it seemed that this was the apotheosis. It seemed that it was horror-horror-horror. And it turned out that horror, yes, but with a capital letter, not with a capital letter, and in Latin script, it is smaller.

And the most enchanting thing about this is that investments did not fall: a 4.6% increase in investments. Retail gave a score, and everything else is more than mild.

Plus, despite all the crises, unemployment continued to decline throughout the year.

The mining industry, which I was grieving about there, by August, the approximately nine percent drop in April-May was overcome, they reached zero. And at the end of the year, the mining industry gave 0.7% growth, and oil production – 2% growth.

About parallel import

I see good prospects for the development of parallel imports.

On the whole, everything is going well for consumer imports. But you just have to understand that it will be more expensive and longer. These are options that cannot be canceled.

According to the nomenclature of components, everything is different.

Chips, maybe, can be delivered. This is what they will fight. But I don't understand how to beat Hong Kong, do you have any suggestions? This is a separate managed territory under China, in fact.

With the equipment – yes, it's relatively tough here. China is not lucky with the sanctions, I don't know how with the rest. Kazakhstan will now look more rigidly at customs declarations.

About cooperation with China

The biggest beneficiary is China.

Our foreign trade turnover in 2022 amounted to 190 billion dollars.

The entire external trade turnover for Russia is 25%, for Russian exports it is still 20%, it will be more.

And China already occupies 30% of Russian imports. Prices for Chinese goods, like for oil and gas, did not grow. This is a real 30%.

I met with one person, he explained to me the work of his business, he told me that he believes that we are behind China forever. This is a big businessman.

Because the technological level and variety of equipment that this country produces, we never dreamed of.

They learn very quickly to copy, and then improve and add what Europeans are able to do.

And, in general, yes, this is ours now, apparently, everything.

About the need for state support

Children are our future.

We supported families with children so badly that it had to start sometime.

Let them overpay those who may not really need it.

But the main thing is to really pay those who really need it.

The social function of the state is to support those groups of the population who need this support: the disabled, families with young children, single–parent families.

This is a social function of the state, if this state is not a wolfhound.

If I have one hand and a full head, I don't need a "fishing rod", it won't help me. Therefore, there is no need for mantras that do not take into account the diversity of human nature. The state should help.

The entire recording of Natalia Zubarevich's speech can be viewed here.