MOSCOW, December 27. /ITAR-TASS/. The economic growth slowdown tendency has persisted in Russia in 2013. According to the updated forecast of the country’s Ministry of Economic Development, the GDP growth will make 1.4 percent at the end of the outgoing year of 2013, the Russian government press service said in the materials, which summarize the working results of the country’s Cabinet in the outgoing year.
The GDP growth has slowed down from 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2013 to 1.2 percent in the third quarter of the year. The debt-to-GDP ratio has made 10.5 percent, the materials noted. The state reserves have amounted to about 700 billion dollars.
For three quarters of the outgoing year the budget revenues have exceeded 9.6 trillion rubles (about $293.8 billion), the budget expenditures have made about nine trillion rubles (about $275.4 billion), the budget surplus - about 650 billion rubles (about $19.8 billion).
According to the estimates of the World Bank, Russia entered the top ten countries “with highest progress in providing favorable conditions for business,” the government said. According to the World Bank Doing Business ranking, Russia went up 20 positions in terms of conditions for running a business.
Meanwhile, the investment in the fixed assets went down 1.2 percent in January-September 2013 against the same period of the previous year.
For the past 10 months the Russian industrial production has posted the annual zero growth (in January-October 2012 the growth has made 2.8 percent). The industrial output has increased by 5.3 percent for the past 10 months (against a 4.6% decline for the same period in 2012). The labor productivity growth has made 1.5 percent in 2013.
The production of the natural resources has posted a quite low, but stable growth of 1.2 percent for the past 10 months, the document noted.