Economics
Putin Doesn't Have to Look Far for Darkest View of Economy
- Audit Chamber’s Kudrin warns of sharper slowdown than expected
- Economy to grow less than 1% in 2019, ex-finance minister says
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From his new perch atop a government agency that monitors the budget, one of the few people President Vladimir Putin has publicly called a friend has some blunt words about what’s in store for Russia’s economy.
Alexei Kudrin, the head of the Audit Chamber since May, warned in an interview that a looming slowdown could be much worse than anticipated. Gross domestic product may expand “considerably” less than 1 percent next year, even as the government sees a downswing to 1.3 percent, according to Kudrin, 58, who was finance minister for over a decade. That’s below every forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 42 analysts.