WASHINGTON, July 26. /TASS/. The Russian economy is performing fairly well in the environment of large-scale sanctions and measures of authorities in the monetary sphere are efficient, Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said on Tuesday, commenting on the decision to revise upward the earlier outlook of Russia’s GDP drop.

"The reason for the difference is that there are basically two main reasons. One is that the domestic economy in Russia has been has been doing fairly well. The measures that were taken at the onset of the war, especially on the financial side, the monetary side, to stabilize the financial sector were quite effective, and they helped support the domestic economy," Gourinchas said.

"On the external sector, Russia has seen very strong export revenues over the first half of this year due to the sale of oil and gas to the rest of the world, in particular Europe and elsewhere. And that has also helped support the economic outlook now going into 2023," he noted. "On the other hand, our expectation is that the impact of the sanctions that accompany the war is going to lead to a further deterioration of economic output in 2023," Gourinchas added.