GORKI, April 13. /TASS/. Russia’s GDP is estimated at 2% this year, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a government meeting Thursday.

"As of today we already evidence some potential for investment demand recovery, expansion of machinery, construction and other sectors of the economy. GDP will return to growth - according to Economic Development Ministry’s projections, this growth is estimated at two percent," he said.

Russia’s Economic Development Minister Maksim Oreshkin said earlier that as the economy had adjusted to the new environment growth is expected in more sectors in 2017 compared with last year. The official outlook of Russia’s Economic Development Minister for this year implies a 0.6% GDP growth. Oreshkin said earlier that he expects a stronger growth for 2017. In the second half of this year, GDP growth will exceed 2%, which means it will be higher than 1% in the first half of 2017, the Minister said.

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov expects the country’s economic growth to reach 1.1-2% in 2017 instead of the officially forecasted 0.6%. Russia’s GDP contraction amounted to 0.2% in 2016 compared with 2015, according to the state statistics service Rosstat.