In his words, about 30 million Russians are living below the poverty level now.
"Our task is to reduce this figure to 10-15 million in the next two-three years," he said.
The government is planning to provide the annual income growth of 9-11% in the next few years," said Alexander Zhukov.
"The annual income growth will vary between 9-11%," said the deputy prime minister.
"The fairly high surplus of the trade balance has been strengthening the ruble in the past few years," said Zhukov.
"This trend will apparently persist, though the ruble will be strengthened at a far slower pace than in the past years," said Zhukov.
"In particular, the ruble will be 7% stronger this year, and we expect it to become merely 3% stronger to euro next year," said Zhukov.
He remarked that the Russian government's currency policy remained the same and would be above all targeted at preventing sharp fluctuations of the rate of the ruble to other currencies.
According to Zhukov, the strengthening of the real rate of the ruble will depend on many factors, in particular, prices for the Russian export items, i.e. oil, gas and metals. However, the state's currency policy will not change, said the Russian deputy prime minister.
