Photo Credit: http://www.ntv.ru

In Davos, Russia’s metals king, Oleg Deripaska, suddenly changed his usual rhetoric and jumped on the critical bandwagon for a while.

Focus on  growth

In multiple media interviews, he slammed Russia’s Central Bank for failing to promote growth in the nation’s economy.

He attacked the bank’s management saying no-one of the people who were currently in charge of running a market economy had ever worked in private banking.

In an emotional outburst he lambasted the restriction on liquidity, including high interest rates, imposed by the Central Bank, which makes it extremely difficult for SMEs = and big corporations, he added – to secure financing for new projects.

Change now or leave

These tight money policies need to be adjusted, he argued, otherwise the economy will continue to be held back.

In an interview on state television Rossiya 24, posted on Rusal’s Facebook page, he went as far as to call even executives at the Central Bank ‘quack doctors who let all the blood from the economy’.

The long-standing head of the Central Bank, Sergey Ignatyev, is expected to step down in June, as his final term ends, which is when – according to Deripaska – we may expect a change in the rules and a lower cost of capital for Russian businesses.