MOSCOW, May 19. /TASS/. Russia’s economic growth rate in recent years has surpassed that of European countries, as confirmed by data from international organizations, Director of the Center for Regional Policy at the Institute of Applied Economic Research of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration Vladimir Klimanov told TASS in response to Finnish President Alexander Stubb’s statement that the Russian economy is "weakened."
"One must also keep in mind that Russia’s economic growth rates have been higher in recent years than those of European countries, so it seems at the very least strange to question the data provided by international organizations," the expert said.
Klimanov added that comparing countries based on economic indicators often yields varying results. Moreover, GDP itself, as a universal measure of a country’s economic strength, is frequently criticized. According to him, there are two primary methods for converting GDP figures from various countries into comparable values: using official exchange rates in national currencies, which reflects nominal values, and using purchasing power parity (PPP), which accounts for differences in the cost of identical goods and services across countries.
"The first method can be used, but it is not very effective because it does not reflect the country's true potential very accurately. If everything is converted using exchange rates, Russia has indeed ranked toward the lower end of the top ten in recent years," the expert said. "More objective are the country rankings published by international organizations, which assess global GDP based on purchasing power parity. In such rankings for 2024, Russia ranked fourth, following China, the United States, and India, and ahead of Japan," he added.
As TASS reported earlier, at the end of April, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revised its forecast for Russia’s GDP growth in 2025 upward to 1.5%. This projection was increased by 0.1 percentage points compared to the forecast released by the IMF in January.
The IMF also raised its estimate for Russia’s GDP growth in 2024 from 3.8% to 4.1%. Meanwhile, experts lowered the forecast for Russia’s economic growth in 2026 by 0.3 percentage points, to 0.9%.
According to IMF data, GDP growth in the eurozone in 2025 is expected to reach only 0.8% (0% for Germany, 0.4% for Italy, 0.6% - France), Japan - 0.6%, the United Kingdom - 1.1%, and Canada - 1.4%. Growth in the United States is forecasted at 1.8%.