3.1% CONTRACTION LARGEST IN RUSSIA SINCE 2009

The Russian economy shrank by 3.1 per cent in 2020 amid the COVID pandemic, its sharpest contraction in 11 years, the first estimate provided by the state statistics service showed on Monday. Analysts polled by Reuters in late 2020 expected Russia's GDP to shrink by 3.7 per cent, while the economy ministry had last predicted that GDP would contract by 3.9 per cent. Economic contraction in 2020 “was related to restrictive measures aimed at fighting the coronavirus and to a drop in global demand for energy resources,” statistics service Rosstat said. Russia saw deeper economic contractions of 7.8 per cent and 5.3 per cent in 2009 and 1998, respectively. Between 2000 and 2008, Russia's economy grew on average by around 7 per cent a year. The ministry expects GDP to return to expand by 3.3 per cent in 2021.