MOSCOW, April 22. /TASS/. A minor adjustment to the dynamics of Russia's GDP forecast for 2025 by international organizations is a working moment and reflects ongoing trends in the country's economic growth, according to the experts interviewed by TASS.
Earlier, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a report in which it raised its forecast for Russian economic growth in 2025 – to 1.5% from 1.4%.
"The Russian economy has been growing at an extremely high rate for two years, above 4%, which has rarely happened even in Russia's modern history after 2009. Therefore, the slowdown is largely justified, in particular because the influence of the budget impulse, which has been significant in the economy recently, has decreased. The impact of sanctions from unfriendly countries is not weakening, but only growing. In this regard, a minor adjustment of the forecast for our country's economy for 2025 by international organizations seems to be quite a working moment," Vladimir Klimanov, Director of the Regional Policy Center, Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEI), RANEPA, told TASS.
According to Oleg Skapenker, associate professor of the Department of World Financial Markets at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, the projected growth of Russia's GDP in 2025 by 1.5% is a very good indicator. The revision of the IMF's estimate is also due to the fact that the fund received more objective data on the performance of the Russian economy at the end of last year, he believes.
"There are results in establishing production - many things can be produced locally, and the rest is supplied through already quite stable channels. Volumes are also growing - the geopolitical situation determines a multiple increase in the production of certain types of products," Skapenker noted, adding that the emerging hopes for the resumption of full-fledged international trade also have a positive effect.
"Russia's GDP continued to grow at a high rate in the fourth quarter of last year, without experiencing a serious slowdown, so the IMF's estimate for 2024 immediately increased by 0.5 percentage points and may be revised again. This year, only a few signs of a cooling of the Russian economy are visible so far, and the IMF forecast update reflects continuing trends in GDP growth," said Vladimir Yeremkin, Senior Researcher at the Laboratory of Structural Research at the IPEI.
He believes that if the budget impulse is maintained, and global turbulence due to trade wars does not spill over into a crisis, there is a chance that the forecast will be raised again in the next IMF review.
Updated forecast by Russia’s Economic Development Ministry
As TASS reported earlier, the Economic Development Ministry of did not lower its estimate for the dynamics of the country’s economic growth in 2025. The real GDP growth rate is projected at 2.5% this year, 2.4% in 2026, 2.8% in 2027 and 2028, respectively.