First estimate for growth in Russia's GDP expected to be 3.5% for 2023, could rise to around 4% after adjustment - Reshetnikov

MOSCOW. Jan 15 (Interfax) - The preliminary estimate for growth in Russia's GDP is 3.5% in 2023, and the figure could be revised during further adjustments toward an increase to around 4%, Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said on Monday at the All-Russia Municipal Forum.

"We expect the first estimate of the results for 2023 at the end of January, though the preliminary data that we had for the results of 11 months, [have] our estimate for economic growth in 2023 at 3.5%," Reshetnikov said.

Reshetnikov said that information on individual sectors of the economy, whose share in the country's GDP has increased in recent years, would be available later, thus a revision in the GDP estimate for last year could not be ruled out going forward, as similar to the revision in 2021- 2022.

"In the first assessments, we usually view the backbone industries of the economy, the core sectors of manufacturing, agriculture, construction, and transportation, areas that the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) observes promptly and can assess. By the end of the year, we have an assessment for the service sector, for the same tourism sector, for professional operations, and for the public administration sector. Given that the role of these sectors in the economy has also been increasing in recent years, and they are growing at an accelerated pace, thus the final assessment is becoming higher. Why am I telling you this? Because it is quite possible that our experts have seen that if the adjustment parameters are the same as they have been in the previous two years, then the final growth rate of our economy in 2023 could be around 4%," Reshetnikov said.

"There are five estimates of GDP in overall; statistics render them gradually, step-by-step. Here, for example, we have the latest estimate of GDP for 2021-2022, which appeared, if I am not mistaken, on December 28 last year; Rosstat has substantially improved the estimate of the economy. You know that the economic growth rate in 2021 was already final; this is the fifth estimate, 5.9%, and the estimate for 2022 changed from minus 2.1% to minus 1.2%. In other words, our economic development over the past two years has turned out to be more than 1% better than we had previously thought," Reshetnikov said.