The increase in the retirement age will be positive for the market and for the balance of the budget system, and will also bring political dividends to support the pensioners, said the ex-Minister of Finance of Russia.
MOSCOW, 13 Jan. Raising the retirement age in Russia can bring political dividends, because the balances of the pension system and will allow for higher indexation of pensions, says former Minister of Finance, the head of Committee of civil initiatives (THD) Alexei Kudrin.
“Increasing the retirement age is now positive for the market and for the balance of the budget system, and even has political dividends in terms of supporting pensioners,” Kudrin said, speaking Wednesday at one of the panel discussions at the Gaidar forum.
He noted that in 2016 the government abandoned the indexation of pensions Russians from 1 February the level of actual inflation by the end of 2015.
“Today we, this year will neoendemism pensioners — well how could it be worse? What is fear? Raising the retirement age will allow to index pensions to retirees in the following years to a greater extent, i.e. it is in the interests of pensioners”, — said the former head of the Russian Finance.
The law provides in 2016 double indexation of pensions of retired pensioners: 4% from 1 February and an additional indexation in the second half of the year, the amount and timing of which will determine in a separate law. Social unit of the government of the Russian Federation will insist on additional indexation of pensions in 2016 even at current oil prices, said earlier on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets.
Earlier Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking about the possibility of raising the retirement age, declared that he “strongly opposes” this and believes that the time for raising the retirement age in Russia is not yet come. The head of state said that if the retirement age in Russia will increase, this process will not be quick; some day he will be raised, but a decision on the timing has yet to accept. However, he stressed that the increase in the future the retirement age will not affect current retirees.
