Omicron risks, Central Bank rate and demographics. The main thing about the forum "Russia is calling!"

On the first day of the forum "Russia is calling!" President Vladimir Putin spoke, Deripaska argued with the HEAD of the Central Bank, and Maxim Oreshkin described a "positive scenario" with the omicron strain. The main events of the investment forum "VTB Capital" - in the review of RBC

Global processes and the pandemic

Investment forum "Russia is calling!" due to the CORONAVIRUS pandemic, the second year in a row is held online. The pandemic and its impact on global processes became cross-cutting topics on the first day of the forum.

Almost every speaker, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, spoke about the impact of the epidemic on global processes, the economy and the investment climate.

Putin began his speech by stating that the global economy is entering another wave of the pandemic amid high inflationary pressures, one of the reasons for which was the disruption of supply chains as demand recovered from previous waves.

A new factor influencing global processes and pressure on markets is the omicron strain, which began to spread around the world from South Africa in November, the president said. He instructed the government to develop a new plan to combat the pandemic within a week. According to him, you need to be ready for any development of events, monitor the effectiveness of tests and vaccines, and use "clear algorithms" in order to stop the spread of the omicron strain. Not necessarily the situation with the new strain will develop according to a negative scenario,considers presidential aide Maxim Oreshkin. The alleged danger of the omicron variant may not be confirmed, or it may have a “positive effect” on the epidemic situation, displacing the dangerous and virulent delta strain. The coming weeks will show how events will develop in reality, Oreshkin emphasized.