Ghost of growth

The government established: there will be no economic jerk

In the January Bulletin "Picture of Economics", the Ministry of Economic Development spoke in an unusual moderate-critical role for itself. Instead of traditional optimism, a long -rected observation appeared in the department’s report that “the acceleration of GDP growth rates [in 2018] is largely due to one -time factors and is not sustainable.” Thus, the Ministry of Economy responded to the resonant data of Rosstat, which at the beginning of the month increased the assessment of economic growth over the past year to 2.3%, although a couple of weeks ago the limit of the dreams of officials were 1.8%.

The Ministry of Economics, unlike the expert community, does not call into question the justification of the recounts of state statistics. Let me remind you that at the end of January, Rosstat suddenly increased the assessment of the growth of construction work in 2018 from the near -alloy values ​​(0.5%) to the record 5.7%over the past ten years. Subsequently, this edit was explained in commissioning at the end of the year of the Maucasa plant for the liquefied natural gas of Yamal LNG, Novatek.

Why Rosstat has not noticed for so much time megastation with a volume of 565 billion rubles is still a large riddle.

This story remains a lot of technical issues - for example, Rosstat could rank the purchase of equipment for Yamala LNG to investment in construction, which led to an artificial overestimation of this indicator. In general, it should be noted that the new leadership so far only multiplies the number of claims to the work of the statistical service. The scope of the rule has become even wider, and the transparency of the work of Rosstat, as before, leaves much to be desired.

At the same time, a number of independent economists consider the revision of the data over the past year quite legitimate and reasonable, although somewhat inaccurate in execution. It is much more interesting here that even an increase in 0.5% to GDP growth rates does not change the picture of what is happening in the Russian economy.

The Kamingout of the Ministry of Economic Development shows the real price of the “record for six years of acceleration of the Russian economy”.

Here's what they told in the department about the quality of economic growth in the industry context. Last year, GDP prompted industrial production (+0.6%) and construction (+0.3%). The maximum contribution to growth was made by large construction sites and the growth of the revenue of oil and gas companies that increased the prey after the first transaction with OPEC was completed.

The growth of raw materials exports and the reduction of imports against the background of stagnation of consumer and investment demand led to the record for the entire observation period of the account of the current payment balance balance sheet operations, which amounted to $ 115 billion. The increase in net exports provided 0.8% of GDP growth and compensated for the slowdown of economic activity within the country.

The state accumulated the lion's share of money from foreign trade in reserve funds, so it is not surprising that only government economists noticed growth. The budget actually returned to the “well -fed zero”, only the population is no longer invited to the Nefteedollars holiday.

Economic authorities are desperately trying to maintain some kind of connection with reality. The head of the Ministry of Economy, Maxim Oreshkin, in an interview with Vedomosti, said that "to make some global positive conclusions [from this statistics]." This year, according to the department’s forecasts, GDP growth will slow down to 1.3% - this is even less than in 2017 (1.6%). The average annual price of oil, according to experts, will be about $ 60 - by 15% less than in 2018. If the fall of raw material quotes is more sharp, then the growth of the Russian economy will slow down to 1%.

Shortly after Oreshkin, the ephemeral of the growth of the national economy was recognized by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, but for some reason it connected this with external factors (without which even the current growth would be reduced to zero).

Despite glimpses of objectivity, everything related to the well -being of the population remains a “black box” for the government.

Thus, the Ministry of Economy believe that the fall of real incomes of the population last year (-0.2%, taking into account the one-time payment to pensioners in 2017), with the declared increase in real salaries (+6.7%), is associated with the deterioration of the position of the rich part of the population (!).

Allegedly, the authorities care about ordinary citizens, increasing salaries and pensions, and only the income of the rich from deposits and property is reduced.

Such an explanation in a strange way ignores the preservation of a high level of property inequality in Russia, as well as last year’s growth by 15% of payments on mandatory payments (taxes, fees, interest on loans), which hit the poor much more than in the class of prosperous wares.

Total - a jerk associated with the implementation of national projects can only be expected by 2021, but even by this time, according to realistic estimates, growth will not exceed 2%. This is a ceiling, which is possible only with the help of structural reforms. And with the current quality of the economy, that 1%, that 3% of GDP growth will equally pass by the most part of the country's population.