MOSCOW, October 21. /TASS/: Slowdown of global economic growth resulted in a certain drop in Russian exports, Minister of Economic Development Maxim Oreshkin said on Monday in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV Channel on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank meeting.
"Russia is thankfully affected to a smaller degree. We have a traditional channel of influence - this refers to commodity prices. While oil prices were above $70 a barrel last year, now they amount to $60 [per barrel] or less. The Russian economy has not actually reacted to that; we have a fiscal rule, we have a mechanism safeguarding us from fluctuations in the commodities market situation. Therefore, our economy feels itself confident, even despite such adverse dynamics," Oreshkin said.
"Russia is nevertheless an element of the global economy and deceleration of global trends affects our exports, for example. We see our export indicators are weak this year, particularly because of this globally poor economic situation," the minister said.
The global economy is expected to grow by less than 3% this year, the Russian minister said. "The figure will be less than 3% due to objective reasons: trade wars and certain other problems. All these things do not facilitate economic growth," Oreshkin added.
According to the Russian Customs Service, exports of goods from Russia declined by 4.2% to $275.1 bln in eight months of this year.
