Putin expects Russia’s GDP growth to exceed 2% in 2023. Photo: Alexander Kazakov / Press Service of the President of the Russian Federation / TASS
Vladimir Putin held a meeting on economic issues on Tuesday. Only the president’s introductory speech, in which he described the state of the state economy in figures, entered the open part.
Traditionally, the head of the country started with the gross domestic product.
– For the whole of 2022, GDP decreased by 2.1%. We expect that by the end of the year, GDP will add more than 2%. Therefore, this growth will fully recover from last year’s decline.
According to the president, the leading industries are retail, construction and manufacturing. It is not difficult to explain the growth of the last point – almost the entire defense industry belongs to it. The entire military industry, for obvious reasons, is now on the rise.
– Real wages for the first time since 2018 increased by double digits: in April, more than 10%, Putin said.
True, he immediately explained that this is an “average value.” “In different cases, in different sectors, in different regions, this looks different,” added the head of state. It is clear that somewhere wages and nominally did not grow.
Vladimir Vladimirovich recalled the mandatory indexation of salaries in the public sector.
“Otherwise, there will be leaks. We understand that people will leave the public sector. It is necessary to index them in a timely manner, these salaries”, the president instructed.
The main risk for development: rising inflation.
“Yes, for the moment it is moderate, but there are already signs of acceleration,” said the Russian leader.
He explained that this is partly because supply is lagging behind demand. Immediately, the government was instructed to “expand as much as possible the production of goods and services, expand the bottlenecks in logistics, energy and the real sector.”
And a little more economy in numbers:
* 1.6% – expected budget deficit for the year.
* 17.8% – non-oil and gas revenue growth.
* 16.7% – annual increase in loans to individuals.
“Demand for final products by citizens is also increasing, which means that high rates of economic growth and revenue from the state budget should be maintained in the coming quarters,” Putin summed up.
