For instance, Putin wants "Chinese friends" to open their market to Russian agricultural products.
Putin Paints Upbeat Picture Of Russian Economy
By RFE/RL
Russian President Vladimir Putin says the country has pulled out of a long recession and that "the economy has moved to a period of growth."
Putin painted an upbeat picture of the Russian economy at the start of his annual televised question-and-answer program, Direct Line, on June 15.
He said that gross domestic product (GDP) had been rising for three consecutive quarters, including the current one, and that industrial production was also up.
At the same time, he said that the number of people living below the poverty line in Russia had grown to 13.5 percent.
And he faced questions about how to get by on low salaries.
Russia fell into a recession in 2014, when world oil prices collapsed and Western countries imposed sanctions on Moscow over its armed seizure of Crimea and involvement in a war in eastern Ukraine that has now killed more than 10,000 people.
Question from 8-year old Stepan: "Why haven’t you won against the terrorists yet? We are a powerful state."
Q: Are we ready to live under sanctions for decades?
A: We’ve been under sanctions throughout our entire history. It’s done to contain Russia.
First phone-in question from a young schoolteacher who gets 16,500 rubles (just under $300) a month. "How am I to survive?" she asks with a smile.
Putin says that young teachers should get less than their experienced colleagues should, but he "doesn’t understand" why that difference is so big. "We will sort it out."
Suddenly, Putin is talking about the very low infant-mortality rate. Which is apparently another indicator that the crisis is over.
The first question comes from the moderator and concerns the economic situation in the country.
According to Putin, the recession is over, but people's wages are low and poverty is high. It's still not as bad as in the 1990's though.