WASHINGTON, July 19. /TASS/. The situation in the Russian economy stabilized against the background of slightly higher oil prices, the IMF said on Tuesday in the World Economic Outlook Update.

"Higher oil prices are providing some relief to the Russian economy, where the decline in GDP this year is now projected to be milder, but prospects of a strong recovery are subdued given longstanding structural bottlenecks and the impact of sanctions on productivity and investment," the IMF said.

"Prospects remained diverse across emerging market and developing economies, with some improvement for a few large emerging markets-in particular Brazil and Russia-pointing to a modest upward revision to 2017 global growth relative to April’s forecast," the IMF reported in the document.

The IMF expects Russia’s GDP to decline by 1.2% this year but the economy is expected to grow by 1% in the next year, TASS reported last week.