The World Bank has improved its forecast for Russia’s GDP growth in 2021 and 2022 to 3.2%, according to a report by the Development Institute on the Russian economy. In its previous report, the WB forecasted the growth of the Russian economy to be 2.9% in 2021 and 3.2% in 2022.
“In 2021, GDP is expected to grow by 3.2% in Russia, after which the growth rate will be 3.2% in 2022 and 2.3% in 2023,” the report says (.pdf).
Experts expect that “the recovery in economic activity, which will be based on the growth of household consumption and investment growth, will be supported by the revival of the global economy, higher oil prices and soft monetary conditions in the domestic market in 2021”.
The optimistic scenario assumes the acceleration of Russia’s GDP growth in 2021, 2022 and 2023 to 3.8%, 4.8% and 3.3%, respectively, the pessimistic – 2.6%, 0.7% and 0.6%, respectively.
In addition, the World Bank expects poverty reduction in Russia to fall from 12.1% in 2020 to 11.4% in 2021. “The main risk for the forecast is the evolution of the pandemic. In a pessimistic scenario, new outbreaks of a pandemic in the world and the spread of new strains of the virus may lead to the need to maintain restrictive measures for a longer period in more countries. In this case, Russia may return to recession in 2022, ”the article says.
As the Kremlin commented on the last report of the World Bank – in the material “Kommersant FM”.
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