GDP growth forecast for 2013 lowered to 1.4% - Ulyukayev
BALI. Dec 3 (Interfax) - Russia's Economic Development Ministry has lowered its forecast for economic growth this year from 1.8% to 1.4%, for 2014 from 3.0% to 2.5%, and for 2015 from 3.1% to 2.8%, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev told the press on the sidelines of the WTO conference in Bali on Tuesday.
Ulyukayev said he expects Q4 GDP growth of 1.6%-1.7%, including 1.8% in November - about the same as the month before.
The economics minister said stagnation will continue into 2014, but did not say whether it would persist until year-end.
"This is the clean calculated position - 1.4%. We have somewhat of an improvement in October. We're hoping that in that there will also be improved figures from earlier in November. We had GDP growth of 1.8% October on October, and we expect about the same in November. In the end, growth will be 1.4%, very unlikely 1.5%," he said.
"We are seeing a continuation of stagnation," but there are points where things are picking up, Ulyukayev said. "But in general stagnation continues."
Asked if stagnation will continue long into next year, Ulyukayev said, "I would not like [try] to be specific here. It will continue in 2014, but to the end of the year or not, I could not say."
He said that the "status of the document - it is a kind of interim forecast, it is not being considered and approved by the government."
"This is our view, about which we inform the Finance Ministry for greater orientation. There will be a formal revision of the forecast in April," Ulyukayev said.
Commenting on the reduction of the GDP forecast for 2013, he said this was largely due to the reduction of the growth forecasts for industry to 0.15% from 0.7% and for investment to 0.2%.
"We have a slight revision on the oil price - to $107.50 per barrel [from $107], for inflation - to 6.2% [from 6.0%], but these are slight discrepancies. The core discrepancy, of course, is investment and it has the greatest impact on GDP growth," Ulyukayev said.
The retail sales growth forecast for 2013 has also been lowered to 3.8% from 4.2%, he said. "Due to the reduction of consumer demand and investment demand we have such dynamics for GDP in 2013," Ulyukayev said.
He said the GDP growth forecast for 2014 was reduced because, among other things, investment in 2013 was lower than previously forecast. The ministry has slashed the investment growth forecast for 2013 to 0.2% from 2.5%, but the forecasts for 2014-2016 are unchanged.
In addition, the growth forecasts for real wages, real incomes and retail sales in 2014 have been reduced by respectively 0.7, 0.2 and 0.5 percentage points, he said. The ministry has lowered its growth forecasts for real wages to 5.6% from 6.2% in 2013 and to 3.3% from 4% in 2014, while raising the forecast for real incomes to 3.9% from 3.4% for 2013 and lowering it to 3.1% from 3.3% for 2014.
"Thus, consumer demand in 2014 will be lower than we expected. These factors [combined with investment demand] in large part are what is affecting expectations for GDP in 2014," Ulyukayev said.
In addition, the minister said, "we also won't have a surge in agriculture, which demonstrated nearly 7% growth this year due to the low base of 2012, but in 2014 we won't have this."
