The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has published its forecast, in which the fund predicted a slower Russian economic growth rate due to expected lower oil prices. On Tuesday, the IMF brought down the Russian GDP growth rate from 4.3% to 4.8% in 2011 and from 4.1% to 4.5% in 2012. Russia should change fundamentally its budgetary and monetary policy in the next few years, otherwise, it threatens lower investments and an unstable falling growth that will be much lower than the potential level, IMF’s representative for Russia Odd Per Brekk stated. According to the experts, the forecasts of international financial organizations cannot be absolutely definite.
According the IMF estimates, the Vedomosti writes that the government should cut the budget non-oil deficit to 4.7% of GDP by 2015 from the current 11% in order to attain six percent of the annual economic growth. Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Russia should make the targeting of inflation as the top priority of its policy, abandoning the control over the rouble exchange rate, which is fluctuating together with the oil prices and hampers the development of financial markets.
The International Monetary Fund believes that the inflation will make 8.9% this year, the Rossiiskaya Gazeta notes. On the contrary, Russian economic authorities do not see any threat from the price growth. The Ministry of Economic Development has recently brought down the upper inflation level from 7.5 to seven percent.
The Russian Reserve Fund will increase fivefold in the next three years to make 4.18 trillion roubles, the Novye Izvestia writes. The income growth will be attained almost absolutely thanks to the export of energy carriers. However, the IMF has made an analytical report, in which the fund predicted a slower Russian economic growth rate, primarily thanks to an expected decline in the oil price. According to the experts, the forecasts of international financial organizations cannot be taken for granted, but it is quite useful to take them into account.
The IMF, the World Bank and other organizations forecast actively in 2008 that the oil prices will hike up to 200 dollars per barrel, the deputy director of the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Dmitry Sorokin said. The situation turned out to be quite opposite and the prices dropped. “Therefore, the scalded cat dreads cold water. According to consulting and analytical agencies, on which the Finance Ministry relies on, they do not pledge a sharp oil price decline in the next 3-4 years. Moreover, according to some forecasts, ‘the black gold’ price will probably even grow slightly,” Sorokin believes.