Putin: Current tense geopolitical situation mainly related to economic challenges

ST.PETERSBURG, June 17. / TASS / Structural problems in the global economy have not been overcome, and it hasn't been possible to restart growth just yet, Russian President Vladimir Putin during his address said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2016). Structural problems accumulated in the global economy persist. It hasn't been possible to restart growth just yet," he said. "After the 2008-09 crisis, it was possible to partly reduce the financial balances, to restrict, if not to overcome the problem of rising debt, to make cash flow transparent and manageable," said Putin. The president expects competition on global markets to intensify and barriers for technology flows to appear. "Restructuring of complete branches is inevitable; many production facilities will lose their value, the demand for trades and competencies will change and competition will intensify on traditional and on emerging markets," Putin said. "Actually we already see attempts now to reserve and monopolize the benefit from new generation technologies," the head of state added. Control over chains of cooperation for technology benefits maximization is rather tough, Putin said. In our time it is impossible to restrain technologies for a long time, the president said. "Such attempts may result in closing the fundamental science sphere currently open for exchange of knowledge and information on joint projects and dividing barriers will also appear there," Putin said. According to Putin the current tense geopolitical situation is mainly related to economic challenges. "The current geopolitical tensions are also related to the economic uncertainty, to the depletion of previous sources of growth to some extent," Putin pointed out. "There are risks that it [the geopolitical tensions] may strengthen and even be artificially provoked," he added. Read more