IMF. Russia’s 2024 GDP Growth Estimate Revised Upwards
In 2023, the Russian economy grew by 3.5 percent
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its new report on the global economic outlook, entitled “World Economic Outlook Update 2024,” has revised upward estimates of Russia’s gross domestic product growth in 2024: Russia’s GDP is expected to grow by at least 2.6% this year, or 1.5% more than the estimates developed by the Fund in October 2023. For 2025, international experts, on the contrary, forecast a slowdown to 1.1%, but still with growth of 0.1% over the previous report’s projections.
The IMF estimates that Russia’s GDP grew at a 3% annualized rate in 2023, while the Kremlin said growth exceeded 3.5%. As for strategic sector performance, Russian banks earned a record net profit of 3.3 trillion rubles (€35.2 billion) in 2023. According to the Russian Central Bank, Russian banks’ earnings last year recorded a 16-fold increase compared to the results of 2022, when the country’s banking institutions earned just 203 billion rubles (about 2 billion euros). The previous record was set in 2021, when the net profit of Russian banks reached 2.4 trillion rubles (24.9 billion euros). For 2024, the estimates are slightly less rosy: the net profit of Russian credit organizations should fall within the range of 2.3 to 2.8 trillion rubles.
Like in the rest of the world, people in Russia are wondering when the monetary tightening will end and interest rates will fall again. According to Central Bank Chairman Elvira Nabiullina, the regulator may lower the prime rate as early as in the second half of this year. But a radical decision will be taken “only if the downward trend in inflation is stable and constant,” Nabiullina said. According to the Federal Agency for Statistics (Rosstat), consumer price growth amounted to 7.42 percent in 2023. In the second half of 2023, the Central Bank raised the benchmark rate every month, reaching 16% year-on-year, the highest level ever recorded since April 2022.