IMF: The Economy Growth Pace of the Russian Federation May Exceed 6% a Year

Odd Per Brekk, Senior Resident Representative of the International Monetary Fund in the Russian Federation, said that the Russian economy may grow at a pace over 6% a year provided that optimal policy in the investments sphere be realized. He added that everything would depend on the kind of economic policy the government was going to conduct.

Lately in the expert community a stable point of view has been formed as for the perspectives of high growth pace of the Russian economy. The point is that at the moment the existing effective factors of production are not enough to preserve the Russian economy's growth pace, consistent with the level of 2000 - 2007 growth rate and being stable in the long-run perspective.

More than that, according to experts' estimates, factual GDP growth rate in the Russian Federation is in conformity with the potential one, i.e. maximal which is possible under the current level of use of production capacities and manpower. That is the reason why even high world oil prices do not lead any more to the increase of the Russian GDP growth rate (which, let us remind, for the period of 2000-2007 equaled 7% on average). In other words, the RF economy stagnation will continue[1] until its development will be stimulated at the expense of new resources and active policy in the sphere of investments.

M.V. Kazakova - PhD in Economics, Head of Economic Development Department

[1] For instance, the foreseen by the IMF Russian GDP growth rate in 2012 equals to 3.6% compared to the previous year, and in 2013 - 3.7%, with the IMF forecasts of the RF GDP growth rate in 2012-2013 from January 2011 to January 2013 having the tendency to worsen (See http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2012 /02/pdf/c1.pdf
and http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2013/NEW012313A.htm ).