Kudrin: Don't write off Russia from BRIC

By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Darya Korsunskaya

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Skeptics who says the BRIC idea is dead because the Russian economy has fallen much sharper than its emerging market peers will be proved wrong as Russia will show solid growth in the long-term, Russia's Finance Minister said on Monday.

"The whole BRIC idea emerged as a result of an analysis of long-term trends... If you analyze long-term trends, Russia remains a country with a solid growth due to many factors... and will rise to the sixth place among top world economies," Alexei Kudrin told Reuters Russia Investment Summit.

"Therefore the BRIC countries will remain the main locomotives of the global economy in the coming decades."

Russia's GDP shrank by a tenth in the first half of 2009 as commodities prices collapsed and capital outflows skyrocketed.

The sharp fall came in deep contrast with the performance of the other BRIC nations - Brazil, China and India - a term invented by Goldman Sachs earlier this decade for a club of top emerging market countries.

Although Russian officials expect modest growth to resume in 2010, the economy is unlikely to return to pre-crisis levels before 2012, which prompted many analysts to say Russia does not deserve a place among the elite club anymore.

Kudrin said the oil price collapse and extreme overheating of the economy before the crisis were the key reasons for the economic contraction, but added he believed the economy would resume growth with an average of around 3.5 percent a year until 2050.

"Even 3.5 percent makes Russia a major locomotive of the world's economy," Kudrin said.