OREANDA-NEWS. The standard of living of Russians is now on average 30% higher than in the early 1990s, but the differentiation of citizens' incomes is very significant even among state employees, said Alexei Kudrin, head of the Accounts Chamber of Russia, speaking at the Gaidar Forum.

"For 30 years, Russia's GDP is 33% higher than in 1991, in the period before price liberalization, and the standard of living is also 30% higher than in those years," Kudrin said. According to him, after the fall in the 1990s, the standard of living of workers in the public sector - in particular, doctors and teachers - was restored to the Soviet level only in 2003-2004. And in subsequent years, it has grown significantly.

“In general, today we live better. But, of course, I must make a reservation: the differentiation of the standard of living even among doctors and teachers is also significant,” he added.

Analyzing the past 30 years of building a market economy in Russia, the head of the Accounts Chamber recalled that at the beginning of this path - in the period of the 1990s - Russia's GDP fell by a third, and household incomes - by 50%. "Of course, this is a serious blow, we all talked about the difficult 90s, but during this period the country was moving to a new economic structure," he said.

The total volume of the Russian economy over the past thirty years has also grown quite significantly, the head of the Accounts Chamber noted. "In 1993, the country's GDP at current prices was half a trillion dollars. And after the 1998 crisis - $195 billion was the country's GDP at current prices. Today it is about one and a half trillion dollars," he said. At the same time, if we count at purchasing power parity, then Russia's GDP over the years, according to Kudrin, has almost quadrupled: from $1.18 trillion in the early 1990s to $4.1 trillion now.

By the early 2000s, he said, Russia had managed to build an economy oriented to the needs of the market. "Already from 2000 to 2011, when I was Deputy Prime Minister, our GDP grew by 67%. Our average growth rate was above 5% - above world growth, which is our now important goal. Living standards have grown by almost three times," Kudrin said.