ArmInfo.The EEC Department of Macroeconomic Policy has improved the forecast for GDP growth of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). This was announced during a briefing on September 22 by Iya Malkina, Assistant to the Chairman of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC). According to her, in 2021, GDP is expected to grow by 4.1% in the EAEU, after reducing by 2.9% in 2020. Earlier, the Department forecasted the growth of the EAEU GDP by 3.8%.
Iya Malkina said that the economies of Russia and Kazakhstan have already reached the pre-pandemic level and are expected to grow by 4% by the end of this year. In Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, the recovery of economic growth will take longer and will be completed during 2022. In these countries, according to the EEC representative, GDP growth is expected by 4% and 3.8%, respectively. Due to restrictive measures, the economy of Belarus will grow by 2.5% by the end of this year. At the same time, she said that according to the results of the first half of the year, the EAEU GDP amounted to almost $ 900 billion, which is 4.5% more than in the same period. Note that the World Bank expects GDP growth in Armenia in 2021 at the level of 3.4%. In its June forecast, the EDB improved its expectations for GDP growth in Armenia for 2021 by only 0.9 p.p. - up to 4.2%. Moody's, in its August report on Armenia's sovereign rating, predicted 4.5% growth in the country's real GDP in 2021. And an earlier (March) forecast of the Fitch rating agency predicted Armenia's real GDP growth by 3.2% in 2021. The Central Bank of Armenia turned out to be much more optimistic, with each quarterly update of the forecast, improving expectations for GDP growth for 2021 - from 1.4% in March to 4.6% in June, followed by an increase in September to 5.4%. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) sharply improved its forecast for GDP growth in Armenia for 2021 to 6.5% from the previous 1%, but warns that the risks of decline remain elevated.
