President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia is deliberately slowing its economic growth to suppress inflation, and that the world's second-largest oil exporter is far from recession, Reuters quoted him as saying, News.bg reports.
„This is a deliberate action. "This is a slowdown in growth in exchange for containing inflation and maintaining macroeconomic stability," Putin said during a televised meeting with top lawmakers.
A chart published in a report by the Russian Central Bank earlier in September showed two consecutive quarters of quarterly declines in gross domestic product (GDP), which meets the generally accepted definition of a technical recession.
Putin played down concerns about a downturn, saying the Russian economy remained far from recession.
"I think the recession is still far away and the labor market reflects that," Putin said, echoing the position of Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina.
The United States, Europe and their allies have imposed more than 25,000 different sanctions on Russia over the 2022 war in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea in 2014 in an attempt to undermine the Russian economy and weaken support for Putin.
Russia's military economy grew by 4.1% in 2023 and 4.3% in 2024, far faster than the G7 countries, but is slowing sharply under the weight of high interest rates.