Prospects of the socio-economic development of Russia to 2015

According to the annual report “Prospects of the world economy”, predictions of the International Monetary Fund on the growth of Russian economy for 2012-2013 decreased by 0.3% and 0.1% in comparison with the July predictions – down to 3.7% and 3.8%. At the same time the IMF predictions are higher than official data of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia: 3.5% and 3.7%. Nevertheless, Russian experts state that the basic forecast of the MED is too optimistic.


Vyacheslav Novikov, deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on the Budget and Financial Markets
 
When we talk about the forecast issued by the Ministry of Economic Development, it is clear that this forecast has the quite utilitarian purpose of drawing up a budget; a budget without the forecast of social development, it is clear, cannot be drawn up. Therefore three scenarios were considered, that is, moderately optimistic, conservative and, relatively speaking, excessively optimistic. The forecast based on moderately optimistic expectations was chosen. In this sense, there is a known fiscal rule, when the oil price is not determined by the consensus forecast of many institutions that are engaged in forecasting of, in particular, oil prices, but by some average for the previous five years, and this is in 2013 - $91 per barrel (I would like to emphasize that the budget is, of course, not balanced); the forecast is compiled on the basis of such a position. Is it realistic? I think we will do what was done in previous years. That is, forecasts change, after that there is a fiscal adjustment with its consequences. How will the situation in the eurozone, in the BRIC countries, in the United States influence it? It is clear that if the recession, which is essentially underway in the eurozone, continues, respectively, we will have to move from optimistic to moderately conservative forecasts. The main factor is economic growth of 3% - 2.7%. We will adjust the budget, based on the situation.

Igor Nikolayev, director of department of strategic planning and analysis at FBK

Any forecast is based, at least we try to predict in this way, first, on the trends that are already formed, and second, on the factors that will operate in the forecast period. I’ll speak briefly on the trends that are emerging now. Just a couple of days ago, Rosstat published an interesting but boring indicator - output of goods and services on the basis of economic activity. There no is growth in August compared with July - the index is 100%. What is this boring index? These are basic types of economic activity - about 70% of GDP - industry, trade and so on. That is, our GDP... We are usually accused of pessimism, but it appears we were optimistic. We said that by the end of the year economic growth would cease. Already in August, this figure was zero. Therefore, stagnation of the Russian economy is now very clear and obvious. And with such a trend, we are entering the new year; for some reason, we hope that we will have a nearly four-percent growth. Why? What are the factors? What do you hope for? External demand? But external demand is weakening. After all, look:at the eurozone, China, America, not everything is clear with fiscal policy, there are some interesting things. Domestic investment demand? But our figure in August on investment in fixed assets is the lowest for the year - 2.3% - much less than it was at the beginning of the year. Consumer demand? 4.3% in August was showed by trade in annual terms. But this is half what it was at the beginning of the year. Innovation? Let us not talk about it. Innovation as a factor of economic growth in Russia – this is still ridiculous. So it turns out that we end the year with such a trend of clearly marked stagnation, and there are no new factors that would enhance growth. Therefore, we have the main complaint of the forecast - it assumes that the economy will grow in the way it is growing now. And we say that it will not grow at best, and at worst, it will decline. And now we risk repeating the situation four years ago. Looking back, in 2008 we adopted the federal budget for 2009 (in 2008 crisis started) with the assumption that the economy will grow by 6.7%. In late November, everything was falling, but we adopted it. In late April, we were forced to adopt another federal budget, based on a forecast that in 2009 the economy will decline by 2.1%, and the economy fell by 7.8%. The difference between the forecast and the fact that it was in reality was of 14.5 percentage point. Now our risk is to get such a situation with the planned targets.