The World Bank has raised its growth forecast for the Russian economy for this and the next two years, according to the published report.
Bank experts expect that in 2024 Russian GDP will grow by 3.2%, in 2025 by 1.6%, and in 2026 by 1.1%. At the same time, in June they predicted growth of the Russian economy by 2.9% in 2024 and by 1.4% in 2025.
“Economy growth continues to be well above potential, driven by optimistic consumer sentiment, rising real incomes, and a significant increase in government spending, including on defense and infrastructure,” the report’s authors note.
They also note a slowdown in GDP growth from 3.6% in 2023. The document suggests that the slowdown will have a “significant negative impact” on countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus through channels such as trade and remittances.
“The economic slowdown in Russia projected for next year will likely lead to a slowdown in economic activity growth across the entire ECA region to 2.6% in 2025, down from 3.3% in 2024. year,” indicate experts from an international financial institution.
According to the forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development, Russia's GDP will grow by 3.9% this year and by 2.5% in 2025.
At the end of July, Central Bank Chairman Elvira Nabiullina noted that the scale of overheating of the Russian economy in the first half of the year reached its maximum in the last 16 years; it was higher only before the 2008 crisis.
In early September, the head of Sberbank, German Gref, said that the Russian economy was still in a state of overheating. Its peak has already been passed, but in conditions of low unemployment and high utilization of production capacity, it is too early to talk about exiting the state of overheating, he noted.
