Abstract
Russia is the biggest country in the world and is ranked 7th for its population with 143 million of inhabitants. The country is today one of the 10th most important economy in the world. In fact, Russia is situated at the 14th world rank concerning its total GDP for 2005 with approximately 763 000 million $, and at the 10th world rank concerning its PPP GDP for 2005 with 1 560 000 million $. After the crisis caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's economy slowly began its recovery, until the financial crisis broke this positive trend in 1998. Russia revived from the financial crisis quite quickly with industry-led growth aided by the depreciated rouble. Then, since the beginning of 1999 the country's economy has experienced a positive trend, which naturally has reflected to its GDP. In fact, the performance of the Russian economy since 1998 has been impressive. Between 1998 and 2006, Russian GDP expanded by an estimated 57.6%, while real incomes of the population grew by 65%.
France's surface is 25 times smaller than Russia and the country is almost 2.5 times less populated as Russia. According to its GDP for 2005, France is ranked 6th (with 2 110 000 million $) and 7th in the world concerning its PPP GDP (1 830 000 million $). The chart below represents the growth of the GDP in France, in red in volume and in green in value. We can observe than the evolution is negative since 1979.
