MOSCOW, September 30 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's gross domestic product will reach its pre-crisis levels in the third quarter of 2012, the World Bank's chief economist for Russia said on Wednesday.
Zeljko Bogetic told an investment forum in Moscow that Russia's GDP was expected to grow about 3.5% a year in 2011-2012.
Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said in early September that Russia's GDP would reach pre-crisis levels by the end of 2012, correcting his previous forecast that this could be done in four to five years.
The Finance Ministry earlier said the Russian economy would be on the rise again as early as the third quarter of 2009, as the country was overcoming the effects of the global economic crisis. The Russian government expects the country's GDP to expand 1.6% in 2010, 3% in 2011 and 4% in 2012.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia's GDP was expected to decline around 8% in 2009 or even less. "We projected in mid-2009 that this fall would be 8.5%. But I believe that by the end of the year we'll see this decline to be no more than 8% or even slightly less," Putin said.
The global financial crisis forced Russia, which receives a large part of its revenues from oil exports, to gradually devalue the ruble amid capital flight and a fall in global oil prices, which declined from their peak of $147 per barrel in July 2008 to around $40 per barrel in early 2009. They have since climbed back to around $70 and the ruble has stabilized at around 30 to the dollar.
