NEWS

Speaking at Davos Wednesday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called the crisis a "perfect storm" that "most" of the world failed to foresee. While saying he wouldn't get into the blame game, he also reminded the audience that U.S. speakers at the economic forum last year had lauded their country's economic stability. Then, in the second part of the speech, he warned against relying on the government to correct the market. Whether the speech was liberal and pro-market or conservative and anti-capitalist depended on what side of the Atlantic the observer was.

Although the American press perceived the first part of his address as an attack on the West, echoing similar criticisms from Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who cited "inappropriate macroeconomic policies," Putin seemed to focus much of his speech on market incentives. "It is important to avoid making decisions, even in such force majeure circumstances, that we will regret in the future," he said towards the middle of his address. "This is why I would first like to mention specific measures which should be avoided and which will not be implemented by Russia."

Here Putin seemed to capitalize on the past experience Russia had with excessive government control.

"We must not revert to isolationism and unrestrained economic egotism," he said, citing that although the protectionist measures "we all are observing" are inevitable, we still need to know where to stop.

"Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state's omnipotence is another possible mistake."

Amid multi-billion dollar stimulus packages and the re-nationalization of banks and companies, such liberal statements may have appeared to clash with both Russia's domestic policy and anti-crisis measures abroad. But they also seemed to originate as a warning that neither Russia, nor other governments should take these steps too far.

"Instead of streamlining market mechanisms, some are tempted to expand state economic intervention to the greatest possible extent. The concentration of surplus assets in the hands of the state is a negative aspect of anti-crisis measures in virtually every nation. In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state's role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated."

Attended by a record-breaking 2,500 people from 96 countries, the 40th annual economic forum took advantage of an austere occasion. Dedicated to "Shaping the Post-Crisis World," it placed Russia's former president in the spotlight as one of the key players in helping forge energy policies and anti-crisis strategies.

As the leader of a country that has been accused of excessive government meddling, Putin's warnings about such policies appeared particularly surprising - and the Russian media rushed to label his address as "liberal." Some analysts agreed.

"He emphasized that it was necessary to use market mechanisms to solve what is essentially a market-based problem," Roland Nash, chief strategist at Renaissance Capital, told The Moscow News. "I think it was very much...a market-focused speech rather than a state focused speech. If you want to use neo-liberal as opposed to conservative, you can say that. It was focused on the private market, and I don't agree with the spin being put on it by the western press."

By Anna Arutunyan