Our country is unlikely to repeat its success in the future
The World Bank has included Russia in the top five largest economies in the world. In Europe, our country has become a leader, overtaking its main financial competitor on the continent — Germany. However, it is not worth building rainbow illusions for the future. Successful market conditions have become the main guarantee of Russian business and trade success, which made it possible to sharply increase the export of energy resources locally.
In the current geopolitical and economic conditions, when the growth of foreign hydrocarbon supplies is in doubt, it is unlikely that it will be possible to repeat last year's achievements.< /p>
The World Bank rating is based on a comparison of the purchasing power parity of each country. The first three winners in this indicator, as expected by experts, were occupied by China, the United States and India, and the fourth was Japan. In its report, the World Bank did not take into account the new regions of Russia — the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, Crimea, as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
“The calculations of Western experts are pleasant, but under the existing circumstances they are not indicative. Russia's economic breakthrough last year is a temporary situation.
Even despite the constant tightening of sanctions pressure, in 2022 the global market environment favored domestic business. Gas quotes on European commodity exchanges reached astonishing $3,000 per thousand cubic meters, which provided our country with the opportunity to sell «blue fuel» at the most favorable prices.
The same was true for oil exports: realizing that after the announcement of the «ceiling» of prices for «black gold», the supply of hydrocarbons from Russia would be reduced, the buyers of the Old World bought large batches of hydrocarbons from our companies indiscriminately, trying to fill their own storage facilities to the maximum.
Now, a similar situation is not expected to repeat: shipments of Russian raw materials to Europe have fallen to a historically low level, and an increase in shipments to Asia — China and India — has not yet closed the lost share in the world market. Additional unpleasant economic factors also do not inspire optimism: the balance of payments continues to remain negative: in the first half of the year, the average amount of Russian import transactions amounted to $34 billion per month, which is almost 20% less than previous results.
Foreign currency inflows into our country fall, which leads to an increase in the value of the dollar and the euro. Consequently, the purchasing power parity, roughly speaking, how many goods a Russian can buy for $1, will decrease, will not become higher, but, most likely, will fall. All this will not allow us to boast of victories in the global financial arena in the foreseeable future.”
“Purchasing power parity, on which the WB rating is based, to some extent takes into account the peculiarities of the momentary market situation.
In fact, these are statistics reflecting the output of each state: in accordance with such a logical scheme, if production volumes grow , then we can talk about the growth of the entire economy as a whole. Last year, the results of such a statistical comparison allowed the World Bank experts to put the Russian economy in fifth place in the world.
Will our country be able to maintain this rather attractive position? Prerequisites exist: the extractive sector, despite the sanctions, continues to find new markets, investing its significant contribution to the economic progress of the state; noticeable rates of development acceleration are also demonstrated by the defense and agricultural industries. I would like private entrepreneurs from the corporate segment to be more active. In this case, the Russian economy could be called developing in most of the most important areas.