Russia's GDP expected to grow slightly above 2% per year over next three years, then closer to 3% - first deputy PM

MOSCOW. Feb 27 (Interfax) - Russia's GDP should grow at a rate slightly above 2% in the next three years, and growth should then accelerate closer to 3% going forward, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov said on Tuesday at Entrepreneurship Day at the Russia exhibition.

"Taking the Economic Development Ministry's forecast, which I consider rather adequate, we see that the six-year period is divided into two stages over the next six years. The first three-year stage is the stage of structural restructuring with a growth rate of approximately a little over 2% per year. Then we should enter a growth trajectory with output of approximately 3%, all the same exceeding the growth rate of the global economy if we take it as 2.5%," Belousov said regarding his expectations for the rate of economic growth.

Belousov reminded that in 2023, Russia's GDP growth amounted to 3.6%. "This says only one important thing, that we coped with the sanctions shock, the sanctions blow we withstood and overcame it, but it does not at all say that we have reached the trajectory of sustainable economic growth," he said.

"The key challenge of reaching a sustainable economic growth trajectory, which stood before us prior to Covid, after Covid and before the sanctions, it is now before us again. Because without economic growth roughly commensurate with or exceeding the growth rate of the global economy, we will not be able to resolve the largest social and now defense tasks, which objectively stand before our society," he said.

"Whether or not we like it, this challenge of providing for sustainable growth is an imperative for the coming six years of our lives. Unfortunately, there is no way to arrive at this mechanism of economic growth in one swoop or create it in one year. We have encountered a whole host of systemic restrictions and reaching sustainable economic growth means a rather substantial structural realignment that will make it possible to overcome these systemic restrictions," Belousov said.

It is, in particular, a question of limited supply of labor resources, he said, with "about 80% of companies according to surveys already facing this limitation today". In addition, the growth rate of hydrocarbon exports will decline to about 1% per year by 2030, which is "significantly lower than the growth rate of the global economy." The third limitation, he said, is "sanctions restrictions - technological and economic."

"Structural realignment is needed to overcome precisely these limitations," Belousov said.