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Far Eastern Federal District
Clearly a large part of the population are not feeling the benefits of the slow economic recovery . What worries analysts (and increasingly the CBR) is that retail loans have taken off in the last year and it is not clear what is driving the acceleration of borrowing.
On the one hand the improving economic outlook, and even more importantly, the falling cost of borrowing, means regular Russians are leveraging their incomes to go shopping. It will be interesting to see what happens to consumer loans in the rest of the year after the summers geopolitical fears that the US will impose new “crushing” sanctions this autumn lead to a 17% devaluation of the ruble, rising inflation and has probably ended the CBR’s loosening cycle.
But as many of these loans are being taken by Russians in the hinterland, analysts worry that increasingly Russians are struggling to make ends meet and so are simply borrowing their way out of trouble, to maintain their standard of living.
60,083
Source: Rosstat
2.3 Kremlin holds its own in Russian regional elections
Russia’s regions went to the polls On September 9. The federal voting day to local, municipal and regional authorities was held in Russia on September 9, with 80 out of 85 regions voting directly for senators (22 regions), regional parliaments (16 regions), and for additional deputies to State Duma lower parliament chamber.
The pro-Kremlin head of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin has been re-elected comfortably with 82% of the votes (on 82% ballots counted), rising from 51.4% of the votes in the 2013 elections, although the voter turnout in the capital slipped from 32% to 30% -- close to an all time low in a race where all opposition candidates were effectively excluded.
In March Russia's President Vladimir Putin was re-elected to his forth non-consecutive six-year term, which was seen as a success for the Kremlin as it largely complied with the so-called 70/70 plan : to get a 70% turnout and a 70% vote for Putin. However, a number of unpopular decisions such as VAT
10 RUSSIA Country Report October 2018 www.intellinews.com