O'Neill brands Russia negativity as a 'British mental disease'

World-renowned investor and chairman of Goldman Sachs Jim O'Neill condemned UK investors' negative views on Russia as a 'British mental disease'.

During his speech at the Ten Years of BRIC Life conference in London last week, O'Neill said although Russia has a lot of problems, its potential for outstanding growth should not be ignored. "It seems to be like a bit of a British mental disease, frankly in my opinion: ‘We don't like Russia, so we are not going to treat it as being a serious place,'" he said. O'Neill highlighted Russia's exponential GDP growth, which is now 1% of world GDP. He said over the next decade this is likely to be close to, if not larger than, the eurozone's total GDP. "So if we choose to dislike Russia b...