Russia’s economic ministers survive reshuffle

The Russian government’s economic team remained unchanged following the appointment of a new cabinet on Monday.

Aleksey Kudrin continues as Minster of Finance, and was appointed Deputy Prime Minister responsible for economic policy.
 
Yury Trutnev keeps the Natural Resources and Ecology brief.
 
Elvira Nabiullina stays on as head of economic development, with the trade brief being split off. With the extra responsibility of Trade Minister, Viktor Khristenko remains the Minister for Industry.
 
The division of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade came as no surprise for some analysts. Evgeny Nadorshin, chief economist with Trust Bank believes it will allow the ministry to work more efficiently and focus on strategic issues. He told RT the streamlined ministry will be able to “determine the vector of future development” more effectively.
 
Chris Weafer of Uralsib bank spoke to RT about the main challenges the ministers will have to tackle. “Controlling inflation is going to be the number one task for the government from the get-go,” he said.
 
Another major undertaking will be to efficiently boost spending, so the enormous sums sitting in Russian banks are released into the economy, and stimulate a rise in productivity.