OREANDA-NEWS. Italian bank UniCredit turned out to be the biggest pessimist in forecasting economic growth in Russia. The bank published a global forecast, from which it follows that Russia’s GDP will grow by only 1.1 % in 2020 (after an equal growth in 2019) and 1.4 % in 2021. This means a total growth of 3.4 % over three years, or 1.13 % per year on average.

The UniCredit’s forecast significantly differs from the official forecast of Russian Ministry of Economic Development which is 1.3 % in 2019, 1.7 % in 2020, and 3.1 % in 2021 (6.2 % growth for three years). First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov said on November 25, that GDP growth in 2019 could be even higher than the official forecast of 1.3 %.

According to Bloomberg, among 39 forecasters who updated their expectations for the Russian economy in November, UniCredit’s forecast is the most pessimistic, except the British consulting company Capital Economics (it considers that Russia’s GDP will grow only by 0.8 % in 2019 and by 1 % in 2021).

“Russia is struggling to go beyond low potential growth,” UniCredit writes (potential GDP growth in Russia is usually estimated at 1.5 %). “If investments in the framework of national priorities announced by President Vladimir Putin in 2018 are not launched, GDP growth may remain below 1.5 % in 2020–2021,” the bank explains.

UniCredit expects that in the third and fourth quarters of 2020, Russian GDP will fall by 0.1 and 0.2 % compared to the previous quarter, which will actually mean a technical recession. The bank also predicts that the dollar rate will exceed 70 roubles in the middle of 2021.

The slow start of national projects is the main point of all forecasts of global institutions for Russia, but most of them still expect that national projects will help economic growth.