OREANDA-NEWS Russia's GDP growth for 2018, according to the first estimate, was 2.3%, follows from the message of Rosstat. At the same time, the Ministry of Economic Development expected GDP growth of 2% in 2018. The pace of economic growth in 2018 was the highest since 2012, when growth was 3.7%.

In recent years, the estimate of GDP growth did not rise above 1.8%, recorded in 2013, and the worst figure was in 2015 - it was recorded a drop in GDP by 2.5%.

The volume of GDP in 2018 amounted to 103 trillion 626.6 billion rubles in current prices. The GDP deflator index for the past year in relation to the prices of 2017 amounted to 110%, RosStat notes.

According to the statistical office, the largest growth in 2018 was recorded in the activities of hotels and catering enterprises (+6.1%), financial and insurance activities (+6.3%), construction (+4.7%), mining (+3.8%) and public administration and military security and social security (+3.5%). The largest fall was in agriculture, forestry, hunting, fishing and fish farming (-2%) and households as employers (-2%).

Earlier, the Bank of Russia predicted that GDP growth in 2018 will be near the upper limit of the forecast range of the Central Bank-1.5-2%. This assessment takes into account the data refined by RosStat in the direction of increasing the volume of construction works in 2018, it was noted in the comments of the regulator.

At the same time, BCS analysts noted that a significant revision of construction data was unexpected - according to Rosstat, the construction industry showed the strongest growth in 10 years over the past year. The Ministry of economic development explained this revision by the inclusion of new data in the statistics - first of all, the launch of the LNG plant "NOVATEK" in the third quarter of 2018, analysts pay attention. In addition, now Rosstat in its calculations for industrial production uses 2017 as the base year (previously used 2010). This was also the reason for the improvement of statistical indicators, as the calculations are now based on a lower oil price (in 2010, the average price of Brent oil was $79.5 per barrel in 2017 - $54.3 per barrel), experts say.