MOSCOW, Dec. 18 -- Russia's current difficult economic situation is first of all caused by external factors, but also reflects the Russian economy's insufficient diversification, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

"Today's situation has been provoked primarily by external factors. But we presume that we have failed to do a lot of what we planned to do, namely to diversify our economy," Putin said at the start of an annual press conference in Moscow.

It is rather difficult to rebuild the economic mechanism, since businessmen would try to invest where they could get the maximum and quickest profits under a favorable investment environment, Putin said.

However, the current situation can be used to offer additional conditions for production businesses, which would be a start to diversify the economy, according to Putin.

He also said that it would take two years for the Russian economy to get back to normal tracks under the most unfavorable scenario.

Subsequent growth and recovery from the current situation is "inevitable" amid the overall growth of the global economy, Putin said. "Additional energy resources will be consumed as the world economy expands."

The president reiterated that the government should do much more to diversify the Russian economy, as "it would simply be impossible to function otherwise."