MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/. The Bank of Russia finds it very unlikely that its risk scenario for national economy will be implemented but even in this case the regulator has necessary instruments to cope with consequences, the regulator’s head Elvira Nabiullina said on Wednesday.
She was speaking in the State Duma, lower house of the Russian parliament.
"We do not consider this [a risk scenario of economic development with oil prices at $35 per barrel] to be likely, but we need to understand how the situation will develop in a negative way, how we should react to this situation. In this situation we expect a recession in 2019, but the economy will grow in 2020 again. A short-term surge of inflation to two-digit values is possible and the need to tighten the monetary policy is possible. But these will be short-term effects, we have the tools to cope with them," she said.
Nabiullina reminded that the Bank of Russia is considering three scenarios for the development of the economy. The baseline scenario assumes a decline in oil prices to $55 per barrel and stabilization at this level by the end of 2019. Under that scenario, inflation will accelerate in 2019 to 5-5.5%, but then return to the target level of 4%.
Earlier, the head of the monetary policy department of the Bank of Russia Alexei Zabotkin said that the recent significant decline in oil prices fits the baseline forecast of the Bank of Russia.
On October 3, the price of Brent crude oil reached its highest level since November 2014 and stood at $86.7 per barrel. However, soon after that the price started to decrease and dropped to $64.6 per barrel on November 13.