(Washington) Despite the war in Ukraine and the sanctions, the Russian economy should resist again in 2023, according to forecasts published Tuesday by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which anticipates growth of 0.7% this year, better than the 0.4% predicted three months ago.

Forecasts for the Russian economy have improved with each recent release.

While it was initially to be faced with a sharp contraction in its GDP in 2022, with a decline of 6%, Russia ended the year in a recession of “only” 2.1%.

And for 2023, the situation looks even better: last October, the IMF forecasts anticipated a recession of 2.3%, before counting, during the previous update in January, on a slight growth (0.3%). .

Tuesday’s report for the IMF’s spring meetings goes even further and projects growth of 0.7% for 2023, three percentage points better than six months ago.

“One thing that we have seen in 2022, less in 2023 and probably even less in 2024, is significant revenues from the energy sector, with very high prices that have helped support the country’s economy,” said explained Tuesday at a press conference the chief economist of the IMF, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas.

But the trend is set to reverse, with “lower exports as prices fall, and even more so for Russian energy, which means a more complex fiscal position for the authorities”.

However, the country has sharply accelerated its public spending, ending 2022 with a deficit of 2.2% of GDP, despite the significant tax revenues linked to its sales of hydrocarbons, in a context of a general increase in energy prices.

“ We have observed a very strong fiscal stimulus, particularly linked to an increase in military spending in the second half of the year and which should indeed continue in part this year ”, detailed Petya Koeva Brooks, deputy director of the research department. of the IMF, also at a press conference.

The deficit is expected to rise further in 2023, with the IMF anticipating it at 6.2% of GDP. This is “ very important in terms of Russian standards ”, underlines a spokesperson for the Fund.

“ The current account surplus is bound to shrink, to 3.6% of GDP against 10.3% in 2022, with much weaker trading conditions and lower energy volumes ”, it is also specified. source.

Over time, the shock of the conflict with Ukraine will be evident, assured Ms. Koeva Brooks: “ In the medium term, we still anticipate significantly lower growth than it was before the war ”.

“By 2027, we expect the Russian economy to be 7% smaller than it should have been without the war,” insisted Gourinchas.