Credit factor of investment development of the Russian economy under sanctions

Abstract

We need to prevent a “drawdown” of the Russian economic growth as a result of a large-scale outflow of foreign and domestic capital from the Russian economy under the influence of a repeated increase in sanctions pressure of the West since the beginning of the special military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine in 2022. Thus the regulatory authorities, responsible for credit and investment policy, should pay primary attention to measures that support bank lending for the purpose of investment development. It is the source of investment financing in our country that is key for the corporate sector which is not organisationally connected with the state. It is the source that is today’s subject to the greatest destabilising influence of external and internal factors. Firstly, foreign bank loans which were previously five times greater than other forms of foreign capital in replenishing fixed assets, have decreased significantly. Secondly, lenders from the East were unable to replace the “lost” volumes of Western loans and creditors, among which the American ones even rose from the 4th to the 2nd place by March 2023 due to reduced total volumes. Thirdly, in the list of Western sectoral sanctions, measures to break credit connections were the very first and still remain the most painful for the Russian business. Finally, the excessively high interest rate used by the Central Bank to cool currency profiteers and accelerated inflation even aggravates the problem of a compressed credit base for investment in capital stock.