MOSCOW, August 27 (Itar-Tass) —— The Russian Ministry of Economic Development expects that Russia’s GDP may grow by 4.1% in 2011 that is a little bit lower than the previous target rate (4.2%). The specified report on the forecast of Russian socio-economic development for 2011 and the planned period until 2014 contained these figures, Deputy Minister of Economic Development Andrei Klepach told reporters on Saturday.
“This is caused by the fact that the effect (of the growth) is quite low for the first half of this year, if to extrapolate it, we can reach 3.8%-3.9% in growth. But we expect some accelerated growth by the yearend,” Klepach elaborated. Meanwhile, the Russian GDP will increase by 3.7% against 3.5%, which were earlier forecasted in 2012, and by four percent (previously forecasted 4.2%) in 2013 and 4.6% in 2014, he noted.
The forecast for the growth of investments in the capital assets was left unchanged at six percent of the previous forecast. Meanwhile, “we raised substantially” the consumer demand forecast, Klepach pointed out. “For instance, the retail trade, went up 5.3% according to our forecasts. The figure was 3.8% in the previous forecast, but this was reported before the Russian Statistics Service revised the basic growth rate,” the deputy minister of economic development elaborated. “The forecasts were lowered in terms of investments for the years to come,” Klepach said. The investments will grow just by 7.8% (8.8% in the previous forecast) in 2012, and by 7.1% (7.7% in the previous forecast) in 2013 and by 7.2% (9.6% in the previous forecast) in 2014. This downward tendency will be taking shape primarily thanks to a lower growth rate of state investments and the investments of infrastructure industries, infrastructure companies and natural monopolies.
The industrial production growth forecast for 2011 was brought down to 4.8% from 5.4%, which were earlier forecasted. The Ministry of Economic Development did not revise the real incomes of people for 2011. In 2012 the real incomes will increase by 4.8% (four percent were previously forecasted), will grow by 4.9% (4.4% were previously forecasted) in 2013 and 5.1% (five percent were previously forecasted) in 2014. The salary forecast for this year was revised in the upward trend. The salary will grow by 3.6% against previously forecasted 3.3% by the end of this year.
As for the inflation rate, the ministry lowered the upper level of the inflation corridor. Thus, the inflation forecast for 2011 is within 6.5%-7%. “Now we are close to 6.5%, but the inflation will hardly go down due to the inflation risks at the end of the year,” Klepach said. The inflation forecast for 2012-2013 remained unchanged at 5-6% and 4.5%-5.5%, respectively. Only in 2014 the inflation rate will accelerate slightly to make 4.5%-5.5% instead of 4-5%, which were forecasted previously.