Home | China | World | Business Russia's GDP to Grow 2-4 Percent in 2002: Forecast WED, FEB 27, 2002     Russia's gross domestic product(GDP) will grow 2-4 percent this year, a leading Russian economist said here Tuesday. According to current macroeconomic indicators, inflation will be at about 16 percent in 2002, while investments will grow 5-6 percent, faster than the economy as a whole, Yevgeny Yasin, head of the Expert Institute under the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, announced at the third annual Russian-American conference in Moscow. "This is less than in 2000, of course, but it will not be a worsening," Yasin said. Three years after the 1998 financial crisis, Russia has become one of the most attractive and rapidly developing markets, he said. He stressed that in 2001 the GDP went up 5.1 percent, which is one of the best figures in the world. Last year, Russia's foreign exchange reserves rose to 36.5 billion U.S. dollars, up from the 11 billion in 1998. The share of bartering in the economy fell to 13 percent of sales, against the 60 percent in 1998. At the end of last year, Russia's debts amounted to 137.8 billion dollars, compared to the 158 billion in 1998 when they were 60 percent of the GDP, he said. The capitalization of Russian banking leaped 38.3 percent and the lending to the economy -- by 37.9 percent. Foreign investments in the first nine months reached 9.7 billion dollars, as direct investments rose to 4.5 billion dollars from below 2 billion in 1998. Editor:Zhong Source:Xinhua Recommend to your friend email:    China Central Television,All Rights Reserved