Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin boasted about his record as a job creator at the UN labour agency on Wednesday, in an apparent bid to boost his standing ahead of elections. Putin's government pumped billions of dollars from oil reserves into Russia's economy from 2008 to 2010 to raise pensions and wages, create jobs and support ailing enterprises.
The prime minister said the policy had worked. "The government of Russia will continue to carry out an active labour policy," Putin said in address at the 100th conference of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Geneva.
"An active, aggressive policy of social development has become for us one of the best tools in fighting the crisis," Putin said. Putin said his government created four million jobs from 2009 to 2010 while unemployment fell from 9.4 percent in February 2009, at the peak of the economic crisis, to 7.2 percent in April 2011.
The prime minister, who steered Dmitry Medvedev into the presidency in 2008, when he faced a constitutional bar on a third straight term, has hinted he try and return to the top post in 2012's presidential poll. Many analysts expect Putin to run himself or endorse Medvedev for a new term.
Putin told the ILO that Russia would not increase the 40-hour working week, as proposed by tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov, who is preparing to lead a business-friendly political party ahead of the December parliamentary election.
Putin reiterated Russia's goal of entering the ranks of world's top five economies and increasing its per capita GDP from the current $19,700 to over $35,000 in the next decade.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.