On the health front, combating the virus obviously continues to be a priority objective until an effective medical solution has been developed. This may require continuing to adapt the capacity of the health system to ease the effects of the second wave on public health and to manage potential and subsequent fresh outbreaks. At some point further ahead, the objective must be to purchase the necessary doses of the treatment or vaccine, for distribution to the population at large. Beyond the health sphere, the short-term priority must be to continue to support households and firms until a sound and sustained recovery is in place. This is something we will very likely not see until a medical solution is available that will render restrictions on people’s movements and on certain sectors of economic activity unnecessary. Until this is the case, budgetary support for private economic agents is crucial to minimise the risk that the present health and economic crisis may trigger a financial crisis, which would entail much higher and longer lasting costs in terms of production and employment. However, these support measures must now be more selective, concentrated on the population groups and businesses most affected by the crisis, to maximise their effectiveness in a setting in which public funds are necessarily limited. This was the backdrop for the extension of the furlough schemes up to January 2021 agreed between the Government and the social agents.
The ruble’s strengthening since the beginning of the year made an additional contribution to inflation slowdown. Higher oil prices and overall favourable conditions in financial markets helped. International investors’ interest in Russian assets recovered, which was the most distinctive in the OFZ market. The agreements on retail fuel prices between the Russian Government and oil majors are continuing to play a significant role. Consumer petrol prices rose in May by 2.8% year on year, and their growth is likely to be moderate in the near future. That said, the new regulation in this market, in particular, the offsetting mechanisms (including reverse excise duties), is rather complicated. Currently, it is hard to accurately estimate its medium-term economic effectiveness, especially for scenarios providing for tangible oil price fluctuations. Moderate domestic demand is also curbing inflation. This calls for a deeper insight into the economy. This is the second most important factor that we took into account. Economic growth in the first half of the year has been lower than expected. We predicted that business activity might slow down somewhat at the beginning of the year on the back of the following factors: the VAT hike, a likely slowdown in growth of the global economy and demand for Russian goods and services, and the implementation period of the major national projects scheduled for the second half of the year. Some of these factors had a stronger effect than expected. In particular, budget expenditure dynamics.