Non-public: which Western assets will be traded in Russia — expert economist

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said again today that Russia has decided to use the proceeds from Western assets, stressing that "the process has already begun." What kind of assets are these and are they proportional to the frozen Russian assets in the West, Pravda.Ru Doctor of Economics, Chief Researcher of the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Igor Nikolaev answered.

— Explain "on your fingers" to ordinary Russians, what kind of Western assets do we have? And what kind of companies are they?

— I probably won't tell you personally about companies. But, in general, Western assets are, first of all, what foreign companies owned. As you know, they quite actively bought our property, those who owned it entirely. As a rule, these are blocks of shares. That is, those assets owned by foreign companies. It is also known that quite a lot of companies have already left their assets for almost three years, sold, especially at the initial stage. But, nevertheless, not everyone has left the Russian assets yet. This refers primarily to those assets that are still owned by foreign companies.

— How many of these assets do we have? How can their volume be shown? In numbers or in money. How can you estimate how many of these assets?

— It is very difficult to give such an assessment now. This process is not public. Moreover, both sides are interested in this non-publicity. Foreigners, in particular, of course, are interested in not showing how unprofitable this exit was. And leaving is, as a rule, a loss. And so they write off, of course, then these losses. They have no other way. So the information that was a few years ago is one thing, and now fragmentary information about who left how, on what terms, who still remains on what terms.

Therefore, unfortunately, I cannot give any specifics here, although I try to follow this precisely because the problem with the information is not public. Both sides are not eager to disclose any details. We are here, according to our habit, acting nobly.

— According to your feelings, the assets we have are proportional to our frozen assets in the West?

—No," I said. Of course, we are not talking about several hundred billion dollars, if we take the same assets — the international reserves of the Bank of Russia, which were frozen. We are talking, of course, about other money. However, I can't say specifically. But how to make a qualitative assessment — more or less, approximately, it is possible. After all, there are, of course, fewer foreign assets left than we have there.