Russia has failed to improve its investment climate amid growing capital flight, a top aide to Dmitry Medvedev has said, as the president draws up economic reform plans on which to base a possible re-election bid.

Mr Medvedev came to power in 2008, following his mentor, Vladimir Putin, who became prime minister after hitting the constitutional limit of two successive presidential terms. In recent weeks Mr Medvedev has begun laying markers for a re-election campaign, upsetting assumptions that he might clear the path for Mr Putin to return as president in 2012.

“The assessment by the president is that we did not have real progress in improving the investment climate,” Arkady Dvorkovich, Mr Medvedev’s top economic adviser, told the Financial Times in an interview. “We need progress now in the short term. Investment is very low and capital flight is high.”