WASHINGTON, April 20 (RIA Novosti) - A senior official from the International Monetary Fund said Thursday that Russia's investment climate had to improve if the country wanted to maintain recent growth rates.
Raghuram Rajan, director of the IMF research department, said investments in Russia were lagging behind IMF experts' expectations, and that the investment climate in the country needed further improvement.
Another IMF official, Timothy Callen, head of the fund's global economic research department, said that despite Russian government efforts to limit inflation to 8.5%, the actual figure could exceed 11% in 2006, according to IMF forecasts.
IMF experts project Russian GDP growth at 6% in 2006, and at about 5.8% in 2007.
Rajan and Callen said investment in Russia's economy has slowed after recent growth, and expressed concern that the economy could be approaching the limit of its potential.
Meanwhile, a report due to be presented next week at a special session of Russia's top business forum also criticizes the country's current investment climate, business daily Kommersant said Tuesday.
The report, drafted by a group of economists headed by Evgeny Yasin, head of research at Moscow's Higher School of Economics, recommends that the government go back to investment policies it was pursuing in 2002-2003, when Russia began to develop a model for investment growth.
Current government success at attracting foreign direct investment "should not mislead" analysts, the report says, as it indicates only that raw-materials sectors have become more attractive.
