Siluanov predicts the growth of the Russian economy by 2.5% in 2023

By Rhod Mackenzie

The growth of Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) this year may exceed 2.5%. This was announced on August 26 by Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov in an interview with the Chinese TV channel CGTN.

The head of the Ministry of Finance noted that specialists in the Russian Federation are taking all measures in order to neutralize the consequences of the imposed Western sanctions.

“It gives its results. If last year the economy shrank by 2.1%, then this year we expect an economic recovery of about 2.5%, maybe even higher, ” RIA Novosti quotes him .

Thus, according to his forecasts, the Russian Federation should win back the fall that happened in 2022.

Earlier, on July 25, Siluanov said that by the end of the current year, the federal budget deficit of Russia would be higher than the planned level and amount to 2-2.5% of GDP. Commenting on the budget indicators, he noted that there are no worries for this year, "because in general, budget revenues are better" than predicted. Before that, on July 19, Siluanov told reporters that Russia's non-oil and gas revenues would significantly exceed the plan in 2023 and 2024.

On June 16, the Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation reported that the best way to finance a possible increase in budget spending could be the redistribution of the “budget pie” . The second and less favorable option is to widen the deficit and raise taxes.

On August 8, Director of the Institute for Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Shirov predicted that Russia's GDP by the end of 2023 will accelerate above 2% and will be in the range of 2–2.2%. During the round table “Prospects and factors of growth of the Russian economy” at the Izvestia Information Center, the analyst also recalled that imports began to recover well in Russia, but this process slowed down due to the depreciation of the ruble. According to his estimates, import growth in 2023 will be quite modest.
This article originally appeared in Russian at iz.ru