YEKATERINBURG, July 11. /TASS/. Russia's GDP growth amounted to 0.6% in the first five months of 2023, Deputy Economic Development Minister Dmitry Volvach said on Tuesday.
"Economic growth exceeds our expectations and forecasts. According to estimations, in the first five months of this year GDP grew by 0.6% year-on-year, whereas a slightly more modest increase was expected. In May, GDP was 5.4% higher than last year’s level, and 0.6% higher than the level of May 2021," he said at the Innoprom-2023 international industrial trade fair in Yekaterinburg, adding that manufacturing and construction were the main growth drivers.
"Moreover, the high dynamics of the industrial production index gives confidence that those trends are long-term, which is why we are optimistic about the future and expect good rates of recovery growth for 2023," Volvach noted.
Deputy Governor of the Bank of Russia Alexey Zabotkin told reporters in early July that the regulator admitted that the level of the country’s real GDP by the end of this year might be close to that of 2021. Last year GDP contraction equaled 2.1%, at last count by Rosstat, while the outlook range is 0.5-2%, he added.
Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said earlier that the regulator projected GDP dynamics by the end of this year closer to the ceiling of the projected range of 0.5-2%.
According to the revised outlook on Russia’s social and economic development, GDP growth is expected at 1.2% this year and 2% in 2024.