As they say in their latest study (available to the “Russian newspaper”), optimistic expectations are based on significant consumer activity. The readiness of Russians to buy goods and services remains high.
“We are seeing growing demand for new and used vehicles, sustained interest in urban and suburban real estate. Maintained at a high level, the demand for furniture and major appliances. All this, of course, will support economic growth,” say the economists. They note that to maintain the sustainability of consumer activity largely contributed to the stability of the ruble. Otherwise, when a sharp devaluation of the ruble, there would be a risk of people to switch to savings behavior.
Experts believe that the country managed to avoid the growth of unemployment. “The full volume of release of workers from the economy we will see at the end of June-July, however, it is clear that the increase in unemployment will be modest in scope,” reads the study. Business used free time to develop their businesses. It is important that the number of development-oriented entrepreneurs has significantly grown in comparison with indicators of last spring: then the proportion of those who were focused on the development of enterprises amounted to 27% (currently 35%).
“All this gives grounds for revising our estimate of the GDP of the country in 2020. In our previous forecast, made in April, we can expect decline of Russia’s GDP in 2020 to 5%. Today, however, it is obvious that the crisis occurs in a much milder form than expected. Therefore, according to our estimates, GDP will decrease by 2.5%, and this estimate can be regarded as pessimistic”, – experts believe. According to their forecasts, consumer inflation by the end of 2020 will not exceed 4%, although in 2021 there is a risk of its increase to 5%. In 2021, we can expect industrial production growth to 2-2. 5% of GDP by 1-1,5%.
