Belousov spoke about the desynchronization of the decline in consumption and investment

All the calculations that were associated with ensuring high economic growth rates showed that it was impossible to achieve it without outpacing investment growth, said First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov.

The Russian economy is passing the peak of a decline in consumption, consumption growth may begin this year, but the opposite is true for investments: the main stage of the fall in investments will take place in 2023, said First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov, speaking at an interregional forum on the implementation of the investment standard, a correspondent reports. RBC.

The latest calculations of the Ministry of Economic Development show that in terms of consumption, the peak of the decline has already been passed or is now observed, Belousov said.

“The fall in real incomes, trade turnover, which happened due to a jump in inflation, will peak somewhere in the second or third quarter. We may linger on a plateau, we may not linger, somewhere around minus 8–9% [there will be a decline in retail turnover in annual terms],” the First Deputy Prime Minister said.

According to him, the growth in consumption is likely to begin as early as 2022 and, “if nothing supernatural happens,” will continue into 2023.

“In investments, the opposite is true. We are just now entering an investment downturn. And the peak of the fall will be in 2023, in the first half of the year. This is due to the situation with incomes in industries, and with profits, and with the restriction of production, and with the restriction on the import of equipment, ”said Belousov.

He added that under sanctions pressure, investment cycles are stretched, because even where import substitution is relatively easy in terms of switching to Russian equipment, redesign is required.

According to the First Deputy Prime Minister, now "the story of investments is a key anti-crisis measure." The government is working on several fronts in this regard, including resetting the SZPK agreements (on the protection and promotion of capital investment) and improving the regulation.

Governor of the Moscow Region Andrey Vorobyov told the forum that the terms of construction projects in the Moscow region before their implementation have decreased from three to one and a half years. “If an investor plans to build a plant or enterprise in the Moscow region, he comes to the Construction Assistance Center, he is given a personal manager and all the procedures that are necessary to start construction - permits, connection to electricity, etc. - occur free of charge due to the support of this office, ”said Vorobyov.

Belousov pointed out that all the calculations that were associated with ensuring high rates of economic growth showed that it was impossible to achieve it without outpacing investment growth. “We need outpacing investment growth, and with a coefficient of about 2, that is, for 1 percentage point of GDP growth, 2 percentage points of investment growth. If we want 3% [GDP growth], we need at least 5% investment growth. And so this model began to collapse from different sides, ”he believes.

Against the backdrop of a special operation in Ukraine and Western sanctions, Russia's GDP in the second quarter fell by 4% after growing in the first by 3.5%, according to Rosstat. The Ministry of Economic Development expects that the fall in the economy by the end of the year will be 7.8%, in 2023 - 0.7%, and in 2024 growth will resume. According to the baseline scenario of the Central Bank, the Russian economy will contract by 4–6% in 2022 and by 1–4% in 2023. At the same time, the regulator believes that economic growth will resume in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Source: https://www.rbc.ru/