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well as curbing the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea. Russia is deeply involved in all three areas.
Lavrov took an almost identical line, saying before the meeting that there were “serious differences” in how the US and Russia view major issues in the world, but added: “our task is to make the best of the diplomatic opportunities that we have.”
“It seems we had constructive talks,” Lavrov said after the meeting with Blink- en, according to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs website. He added that there was a need to get beyond the “unhealthy situation, which occurred in relations between Moscow and Washington in the previous years.”
Separately in Moscow on the same day Putin told the local press that he wanted to draw a line under Biden’s “killer” comments and focus on improving rela- tions with the US.
While the two seasoned diplomats had their first opportunity to sound each other out and see where they might
co-operate and where they might clash, the big item on the agenda was trying to settle a date and venue for a proposed one-on-one summit between Biden and Putin, which is supposed to happen somewhere in Europe on June 15-16.
No news was forthcoming as to what if any progress had been made in setting the date and place for the meeting. Lavrov declined to comment on a pos- sible Biden-Putin meeting, according to an Interfax report. The Kremlin is reviewing the proposal, but still has not formally accepted the invitation.
is the first time the confidence index
has broken into positive territory for a decade. Prior to that, the index got well above zero at the height of the noughties boom in 2006 and 2007 to peak at an all-time high of +7 in 2007.
Those two years saw a reversal of over
a decade of capital flight as Russian busi- nessmen for the first time ever believed in the future of their own country and some $350bn of funds returned from offshore havens as Russians started to invest in the domestic economy. The global financial crisis in 2008 put paid to that optimism and the same amount of money flowed out of Russia that year as the confidence index crashed to its all-time low of -20.
The mood amongst businesspeople is certainly very buoyant as the Russian business confidence survey run by Ros- stat every month has turned positive for the first time in eight years, and for the second time ever. The index was at zero in April, after it was knocked off its feet by last year’s coronacrisis. However, it fell to a low of -7.3 in November, which is less than the -8 of the previous two years, its fall having been offset to an extent
by the appearance of the first vaccines to counter the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The only other time the index has been positive was during the height of the noughties boom in 2006 and 2007, before the 2008 crisis knocked the index back to its all-time low of -20.
Some have argued that Russia’s economy has just started a new super cycle that
Source: tradingeconomics.com I Federal State Statistics Service
Is Russia at the start of a new super cycle? Its businesspeople seem to think so.
Russian business confidence index rises to zero for the first time in eight years
Ben Aris in Berlin
The Russian business confidence index has risen to zero for the first time since 2012, when the index briefly went positive for seven months in a row for the first time ever.
Business confidence has been recovering after being knocked off its feet last year by the coronacrisis, falling to a low of -7.3 in the autumn of 2020, still not as low in the previous two years, when it fell to -8.
Russian business confidence is very seasonal, with the owners of businesses always being more depressed in the
autumn and the most optimistic in the spring and early summer months, when the index typically rises to -1 or -2.
Last year was an exception, when even in the summer months the best the index did was to rise to -4.7. The autumn fall in confidence was offset last year as the first vaccines appeared in November, inspiring optimism that the pandemic would be over in the first half of this year, as appears to be the case.
However, the bounce back in optimism is unusually strong and April’s null result
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