Economic growth
The performance of the Russian economy since the 1998 crisis has been impressive. Between 1998 and 2005, Russian GDP expanded by an estimated 48 percent, while real incomes of the population grew by 46 percent. Poverty (headcount) rates were cut in half and regional disparities declined somewhat. The pace of growth began to slow in 2001 and 2002, along with the steady weakening of the factors the supported the initial growth, although a major strengthening of oil, gas, and other prices on Russia's commodity exports gave a new boost to economic growth since 2003. Modernization and productivity growth outside the oil and gas sector have also been important contributing factors to the recent expansion.
Russian economic growth in 2005 has been influenced by three primary factors: a continuing rapid expansion of domestic incomes and demand, improvements in the expectations of investors, and growing competitive pressures from the real appreciation of the ruble.
Australia is a relatively small economy, with a population of only 20 million people, and a national output that is ranked only just within the world's top twenty. While Australia's national output is well ahead of neighbours such as New Zealand and Indonesia, it is well behind the outputs of Japan, China, the United States and many European nations. The main reason why our economy is small is because of our small population. The Russian Federation, however, is a relatively large country yet suffered many economic downfalls during a period of time which has therefore attributed to its slightly under-developed economy.
Employment and Unemployment
Russia's workforce totalled 78,374,600 people in 2003. Employment opportunities have changed radically as a result of the econom ...