In early May, the Russian National Reserve Fund started to grow again for the first time in the last 9 months. Experts consider it as a key positive trend for the Russian economy. The Russian National Reserve Fun is the world's third largest reserve fund and is expected to amount to $391.3 billion in May, 2009.
Nevertheless, the Russian economy is still weak, as the GDP for the first quarter of 2009 dropped by 9.5% year on year. Industrial output fell by a record 17% year on year in April 2009 with the manufacturing sector being hit the hardest, falling 25% year on year. The unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2009 increased to 10% of the working population or 7.5 million persons. The real wages in March 2009 slumped by a further 6.7%.
Due to the economic slowdown, the Russian government has decided to allocate an unprecedented amount of money ($23 billion) to support a 3-year program to help the development of small and medium enterprises (SME's). The aim of the program is to try to make SME's account for up to one third of Russia's GDP by 2012. The initiative will also try to support the growth of existing SME's, by easing access to loans and allocating more funds for direct business subsidies.