The Central Bank does not expect the removal of sanctions from Russia in the near future – Kommersant

The Central Bank allows the preservation of anti-Russian sanctions until 2026. This is stated in the published regulator project The main directions of the unified state monetary policy for 2024-2026.

According to the base scenario of the Central Bank, geopolitical conditions will not change significantly, and sanctions will remain in the forecast horizon. At the same time, the regulator predicts a slowdown in global economic growth, which will limit the growth in demand for Russian goods. “The main risks for the Russian economy are associated with the deterioration of the geopolitical background and the situation in the global economy as a whole,” says the document developed by the Bank of Russia.

In addition, the Central Bank allowed two possible scenarios for the development of the world economy for the next three years. One of them assumes increased fragmentation of the global economy and sanctions pressure on Russia, the other additionally takes into account the possible worsening of the situation in the financial sector, which could lead to a global financial crisis that will be “comparable in scale to the crisis of 2007-2008.”

The draft also states that the regulator plans to return the key rate to a long-term neutral range of 5.5-6.5% by 2026. “In the baseline scenario, the Bank of Russia forecasts the annual average key rate in the range of 7.9-8.3% per annum in 2023, 8.5-9.5% in 2024, 6.5-8.5% in 2025 . By 2026, the Bank of Russia will return the key rate to the long-term neutral range, which it estimates at 5.5-6.5% per annum,” the document says.

In general, according to the draft, the Bank of Russia kept the forecast of the main macroeconomic indicators under the baseline scenario for 2023 and the period 2024-2026

Alexander Kislov