• 24 August 1991 (from Soviet Union).

• President: Vladimir Putin (acting president since December 31, 1999, elected president since May 7, 200)
• Head of government: Primier Mikhail Kasianov (since May 7, 2000)
  First Deputy Premier Alexei Kudrin (since 18 May 2000)
  Deputy Primiers Alexei Gordeev, Victor Khristenko, Ilya Klebanov, Valentina Matveenko
• Cabinet: Ministers of the Government or “Government” composed of the premier and his deputies, ministers and other agency heads – all are appointed by president
  
  President Administration (PA) – provides staff and policy support to the president
  President is elected by poplar vote for a four-year term. Next president election 2004.
  

Federal Assembly consists of Federation Council (178 seats-members appointed by the top executive and legeslative officials in each of Russia’s 89 federal administrative units) and the State Duma (450 seats – elected by direct popular vote. Half elected from party lists, half from single-member constituencies)
Last State Duma elections held December 19, 1999. Next elections 2003.

Leading parties

Election results: KPRF (24.29% or 113 seats), Unity (23.32% or 72 seats), OVR (13.33% or 67 seats), Union of Right Forces (8.52% or 29 seats), LDPR (5.98% or 17 seats), Yabloko (5.93%)

• Russian economy recorded an impressive growth in the year 2000, which witnessed the start of a consolidation in industry across the board
• Real GDP growth in 2000 was 8.3%, fuelled by a strongly positive contribution from net exports, but also from investment growth and final household demand.
• In 2000, Russian inflation continued to decrease from financial crisis of 1998. 2000 levels were not as low as 11% in 1997, but remained far from 2,000% in 1992.
• In real effective terms, the ruble appreciated by more than 20% in 2000. The average ruble exchange rate to the USD in 2000 was 28.16. In 1999 the ruble ended at 27 per USD.
• Foreign debt – as of early 2001 was announced at 4 billion, which is a billion decline from 8 billion debt estimated at the beginning of 2000.

• The investment climate in Russia has been improving since late 1999. Election of the new president – Vladimir Putin has reduced political uncertainties. The approval of the government’s socio-economic program has been a major step towards winning back investor’s confidence.
• Gross foreign investment in Russia in 2000 rose by 14.6% year-on-year to US$ 10.958 billion
• Foreign direct investment (FDI) accounted in 2000 to 40.4% (US$ 4.429 billion). Compared with 1999 FDI increased by 3.97%
• United States continues to be the leading foreign direct investor into Russia, accounting for nearly 35% of all cumulative foreign direct investment
• Industries attracting Foreign Investment in Russia – 4 sectors: transportation, trade/catering, food and fuel industry (oil production) as of January 2001 accounted for nearly 70% of direct investment. Other sectors each worth less than 10% of total FDI include communications, engineering/metallurgy, services (advertising / auditing) and forestry sector
• Level of FDI is still low compared with FDI in Eastern Europe and other emerging markets.

Economic development

In the last four years of economic development we can see:

• Year 2000 unemployment % shows an on-going recovery from 1998 financial crisis when both foreign and Russian companies resorted to layoffs and salary cuts
• inflation continues to decrease from 1998 financial crisis
• GDP shows a positive growth
• direct foreign investments show a significant growth but still low compared with FDI in Eastern Europe