Experts saw the risk of stagnation in Russia after the pandemic

The forecast of the government, which expects the Russian economy to grow by 3% or more in the coming years, is unreasonably optimistic, experts of the FBK economic club, who took part in the October 20 discussion “Covered by the second wave. Due to what will the economy survive: oil , debts, reserves? In their opinion, without changing the current economic model in the context of a declining population, a decrease in oil demand and a fall in real incomes of citizens, Russia will stagnate after the pandemic crisis.

Problems of the economic model

The government's hopes for a quick economic recovery are not justified, believes Ruben Enikolopov, rector of the Russian School of Economics (NES). “Not only does the forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development not include the second wave [of COVID-19], the validity of such an optimistic forecast for growth in 2021 and especially in 2022 is not entirely clear,” he notes.

The government did not include a second wave of coronavirus infection in the basic and conservative macro forecasts, but the document states that it remains “a key source of risk for the forecast parameters.” In the baseline macro forecast (.pdf) approved by the government, Russia's GDP is expected to grow by 3.3% in 2021 after falling by 3.9% in 2020. In 2022, the growth rate will accelerate to 3.4%, in 2023 it will be 3%. RBC sent a request to the Ministry of Economic Development about the possibility of revising the macro forecast in connection with a new round of growth in the incidence of coronavirus in the fall.