WASHINGTON, January 16 (Itar-Tass) - To Russia, the past year may be marked by a steep decline in GDP growth rate, according to a new study published by the World Bank (WB) on Tuesday.
According to the study, the 2012 GDP growth rate for the Russian Federation is expected to be 3.5 percent, as against 4.3 pct the year before.
Economic growth in Russia -- the largest country of the Europe-Central Asia region -- is expected to slow down in 2012 to 3.5 percent, the study says, mentioning unfavourable conditions as the main causes of such a development of events: drought which affected agricutlrue, the growing inflation, as well as the weakness of the world economy.
The WB study emphasizes that despite the expected high prices of oil Russia's GDP will grow slightly in the near future. In this connection, as the authors of the study suppose, taking into consideration the budget deficit in non-fuel sectors of the economy, the government will encounter difficulties with augmenting state investments.
Nevertheless, WB experts' view is that the situation in the Russian economy will be gradulaly improving. Their forecast is that GDP growth will be 3.6 percent this year, 3.9 percent next year, and 3.8 percent in 2015.