Putin’s final-term strategy

Fiscal push: Putin speaks at a press conference in Moscow. A key part of his fiscal push will be speeding up an existing plan to invest US$400bil in things like highways, housing and ports over four years. — AFP

MOSCOW: With time running out on his final term as president, Vladimir Putin evidently wants to end it with a boom.

Putin has been a cautious steward of Russia’s US$1.7 trillion economy, partly to shield it against blowback from his more adventurous foreign policy. For the last five years, he’s imposed some of the world’s toughest budget austerity. Combined with high interest rates, that’s made Russia a favourite of carry-trade investors – but it’s left living standards mired at 2012 levels and economic growth stuck below 2%.