The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects that Russia will this year achieve an economic growth of 4.3 percent in 2011 and 4.1 percent in 2012.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects that Russia will this year achieve an economic growth of 4.3 percent in 2011 and 4.1 percent in 2012.

The inflation rate should at the end of 2011 amount to 7.5 percent, said the Fund’s representative in Russia, Alexei Mozhin.

Mozhin said that the key idea of ​​the IMF’s annual report on the condition of the Russian economy is that “the recovery from the crisis is under way, with a relatively slow economic growth and high inflation”.

He added that “unlike most developed countries, in Russia, things will be fine in the short term – economic growth has started strengthening again, the budget is almost balanced out, and the rate of inflation is decreasing”.

“The main challenges await us in the medium and long run. I would like to single out three main issues: the demographic situation, the dependence on exports of raw materials and business climate. Talks with the IMF moved around these three themes”, said the head of the Fund in Russia.

A new IMF forecast of the economic growth of Russia is somewhat better than recent estimates of the government in Moscow, while the inflation forecast is slightly worse.

The Russian Ministry for Economic Development in late August announced a growth forecast this year of 4.1 percent and inflation in the range of 6.5 and seven per cent.

Tanjug