President Vladimir Putin pledged yesterday to press ahead with his goal of doubling the size of Russia's economy and improving the lot of its mostly impoverished population.
"The success of top-priority tasks depends on us alone. ... Doubling of gross domestic product within a decade, reducing poverty, growth of people's prosperity and restructuring the army," he said in his annual state of the nation speech to both houses of parliament.
At the current rate of economic growth, per capita incomes should also grow faster. "If we keep annual economic growth at least as it was in the first quarter of this year ... we could double per capita GDP not in 10 years, but by 2010," Putin said.
Putin also pressed his government to work harder to push inflation well below its current levels. It is targeted at 10 percent this year.
"I think the government is able to reach a target of 3 percent a year," he said.
Investors are closely monitoring the address in the Kremlin, Putin's first since his landslide re-election in March, for evidence he will go through with painful reforms.
The address is a natural showcase, given an economy boosted by near-record oil prices generating big export revenues. Economic growth was 7.3 percent last year and remains robust, with officials this week suggesting the final figure this year will exceed forecasts of 6.4 percent.
The enormous power concentrated in Putin's hands, reinforced by a strongly pro-Kremlin parliament elected in December, has generated lethargy among many Russians pleased with political stability under Putin but weary of talk of reform that has so far produced few tangible results for the masses.
Putin has told ministers they must do more to hoist the living standards of those below the poverty line -- officially one in five of the 145 million population, though opposition politicians say the figure is much higher.
"In theory, the job of reducing poverty is possible, but then we must forget doubling gross domestic product by 2010," Lilia Ovcharova of the Institute of Social Policy told the weekly Profil.
"Half the poor work in sectors with few or stagnant prospects. To cut poverty you need investment in those sectors."
Putin relishes his image of a leader restoring stability after the turmoil that marked the collapse of Soviet rule under President Mikhail Gorbachev and the re-appearance of the Russian state under President Boris Yeltsin.
To uphold that image he must offer assurances he can end a rebellion in the Chechnya region that nationalists fear could threaten the fabric of the nation. Guerrilla violence has spilled on occasion onto the very streets of Moscow.
Putin embarked on the speech after clinching a EU deal on joining the WTO, including a pledge to raise domestic industrial gas prices.
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