NII

• Witte went back to the idea of taking out foreign loans, raising taxes and interest rates to boost available capital for investment in industry
• In 1897 the rouble was based on the gold standard, in order to give potential investors confidence in the value fo the Russian currency
• Witte's policies only had short-term positive impacts. In 1914, more money was borrowed from abroad, taxes were increased and the gold standard was abandoned. This led to rampant inflation - the price of fuel and food quadrupled in the first two years of WWI