WASHINGTON, April 19The Russian economy has proven resilient under sanctions, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) report on the state of the European region.
«Over the past two years, in the context of large-scale sanctions imposed by a number of countries, the Russian economy has proven its stability,» the document says.
According to the fund, the Russian economy exceeded expectations for 2023. The IMF noted that oil export volumes remain stable.
In addition, sanctions have led to a “retooling” of the economy, investment in new production capacity and record low unemployment with rising incomes.
In a report published recently, the IMF improved its growth forecast for the Russian economy for 2024 and 2025, expecting an increase in GDP by 3.2 and 1.8 percent, respectively.
For 2023, the growth of this indicator, according to the fund, amounted to 3.6 percent, which coincides with Rosstat’s estimate.
At the same time, the European economy has slowed down significantly, which indicated in February by the Russian Permanent Mission to the European Union. Stagnation in many European countries has been observed since the fall of 2022.
Thus, for several quarters in a row, the EU has recorded near-zero GDP growth rates: in the third quarter of 2023 — minus 0.1 percent in the eurozone.
As Mikhail Mishustin reported in his report on the work of the government, in Europe at the end of last year the dynamics of GDP growth were not far from zero, and in Germany, which is the largest economy in the EU, a recession of minus 0.3% was recorded.