Russian GDP grew 4.5% in Dec - Klepach
MOSCOW. Jan 31 (Interfax) - Russian GDP grew 4.5% year-on-year in December and 0.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach told a briefing.
The Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) has said preliminary GDP growth was 4.0% for 2010 as a whole. "That's not a bad result," Klepach said.
The average price of Urals crude was $78.2 per barrel in 2010 and is expected to equal $81 in 2011.
As for the GDP growth forecast in 2011, Klepach said: "For now I don't see any grounds for adjusting it. It currently equals 4.2%." Growth in the first two quarters of 2011 might be slower than in the same period of 2010 [3.1% in the first quarter of 2010 and 5.2% in the second]. It should rise sharply in the third quarter owing to the low comparison basis due to drought at that time last year [growth of 2.7%] and may improve a little more in the fourth quarter compared with the "decent" fourth quarter last year, he said.
Investment in fixed capital should grow 9% in 2011, rising to 10.7 trillion rubles in nominal terms, up from 9.1 trillion rubles in 2010.
