Pension reform is meaningless considered in isolation from the economy

Don’t consider myself a deep expert on pension reform, but professional and life experience (at the time, was actively involved in the management of pension savings and the promotion of the topic in mass) and observation of the endless anxieties of the state in the reform of the pension system allow to formulate the following theses.

1. No voluntary retirement savings system to work effectively, we will not (only optional!); for a voluntary system, I think, required a different level of income — two to three times higher.

2. Now, when generated substantial resources, and the government cannot decide how to start spending the national welfare Fund, it’s time to think about the unfreezing of the accumulative pension system; availability of long-term pension savings directly serves the purposes of the transition to investment-based growth model.

3. Rassekrette data for privileged categories of pensioners; there is a strong suspicion that the perpetual imbalances in pension revenues and expenditures largely related to these benefits (a separate question about the validity of these benefits).

4. And, of course, pension reform is meaningless considered in isolation from the economy; until we get back on the path of sustainable growth to 3.5-4%, the pension issue will remain a perpetual headache.

Kirill Tremasov, a former head of Department of macroeconomic forecasting of Ministry of economic development

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