The growth of Russia’s economy in 2021 will be slowed down by the government’s conservative spending policy, experts at the National Credit Ratings agency believe. In their view, compared to many other countries, Russia currently allocates much less money to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic recession.
More so, Russian authorities do not intend to increase such spending in 2021–2023. According to the NRC specialists, in 2021 federal budget spending will be 9% less that in 2020. Natalia Orlova, Chief Economist at Alfa-Bank, expects that a stricter budget policy may result in a 2% drop in the national GDP.
Yet the Finance Ministry has a different opinion and claims that the 2020 federal budget spending over 11 months so far is 27% higher that over the same period a year ago. According to RBC daily, Russia is well ahead of some European nations in that regard.
An assessment by the Analytical Credit Rating Agency suggests that the current pandemic-caused crisis is nevertheless not as severe as the ones Russia faced in the past.