Economic growth remained decent in 2024

RUSSIA ECONOMICS - In Brief 10 Feb 2025 by Evgeny Gavrilenkov

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Rosstat reported that in 2024, the country’s GDP reached R200039.5 bln and grew by 4.1%. The growth figure appeared slightly higher than our forecast and it looks as though some acceleration of economic growth occurred in December (as monthly sectoral economic statistics showed). We think that the December growth acceleration was largely a statistical effect, as some underreported during the year economic activity data was added to December statistics (as often happens). Note that some data are collected monthly, some – quarterly, and some – only on an annual basis. Going forward, Rosstat will revise and rebalance the intra-year monthly growth rates, and short-term growth trends might look slightly different. At the moment, we have to accept that economic growth remained good enough in 4Q24 – even though quarterly GDP statistics are available for 9M24 only (GDP grew by 4.2% y-o-y in 9M24). So far, Rosstat has published its flash estimate of the 2024 annual GDP. Meanwhile, Rosstat also published statistics on the basic sector output (a monthly measure of economic activity in industry, agriculture, construction, transportation, and trade) and it appeared that in 4Q24 this output grew y-o-y by 5.0%, i.e., faster than in 3Q24 (2.8% y-o-y), and in 2024 as a whole the output of the five basic sectors grew by 4.8%. As said above, strong y-o-y growth was reported in December in many sectors. Industrial output, for instance, grew in December by 8.2% amid 14.0% y-o-y growth in manufacturing. Even the mining segment delivered positive growth in December (1.3% y-o-y). We plan to digest the recently published 2024 economic statistics and to come up with a more detailed analysis of ...