Russian official says economic crisis coming to end

MOSCOW, Sep 28 (PRIME) -- A period of crisis in the Russian economy is coming to an end, the situation is not that sharp as last year, but the crisis will be completely over only after stable quarterly economic growth is achieved, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said at a meeting Wednesday.

“I hope… we will switch to a phase of stable growth when this crisis pause ends… and we see that it is coming to an end,” he said.

“We will be able to say that the crisis is over when we have statistics confirming growth at least during several quarters and when we see that real incomes of the population are growing. Only then the crisis will be over. Now we still have a difficult period, although it is not that sharp as in 2015,” Shuvalov said.

The Economic Development Ministry expects Russia’s economy to decline 0.6% in 2016. In January–June, gross domestic product (GDP) fell 0.9%, with a decline slowing down to 0.6% in the second quarter from 1.2% in the first quarter.

The central bank said on Tuesday that seasonally adjusted GDP was close to zero in July–September, while in annual terms it contracted by 0.4–0.7%.

In 2015, the Russian economy contracted by 3.7%.

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