“If oil prices stay at their current level of $60 per barrel, and the external factor of sanctions stays in place, making it highly difficult to refinance loans abroad and thus triggering a high capital drain, we believe that recovery growth of the economy, although minor, is possible from 2016,” he told the Russia 24 TV channel.
He said GDP growth would gradually near a potential index of 2-3% a year.
So far, in his words, in conditions of the current situation on the oil markets and Western anti-Russian sanctions economic slump in 2015 will be about 3%.
At the same time, he noted that it was inexpedient to freeze prices on socially significant goods, including food products, since it may transform inflation to a hidden form of merchandise shortages. “It is absolutely inexpedient, since it will mean that open inflation we can more or less cope with will transform into a hidden form of merchandise shortages. This is a highly dangerous and absolutely irrational path,” he said, adding that if prices were frozen, entire groups of products would vanish from store shelves. “We must refrain from such measures,” he noted.
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