Global News Journal
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Russia talks to foreign investors – in private
Posted by Gleb Bryanski
Foreign investors who filed into a Moscow hotel on Wednesday anxious to hear what Russia’s anti-crisis tsar First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov had to say about the future of the market were disappointed to find he had not shown up.
They had many questions: the stock market is down around 70 percent since May peak, gold and forex reserves are have fallen below $500 billion for the first time in eight months as Russia props up the rouble and the economic outlook is uncertain.
Investors were left to listen to economists from UBS, whose conferences in better times used to attract the cream of Russia’s business and political elite. Other official speakers later took the floor.
“I am not going to answer your questions for now because there are journalists in the hall and I will have to give you very stupid answers,” said Stanislav Voskresensky, a 32-year-old deputy economy minister who is tipped as a rising star.
