{"id":673198,"date":"2026-05-15T19:32:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T19:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/673198\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T19:32:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T19:32:15","slug":"putin-hails-positive-economic-growth-in-march-despite-sharp-downgrade-in-annual-forecast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/673198\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin Hails \u2018Positive\u2019 Economic Growth in March Despite Sharp Downgrade in Annual Forecast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-path-to-node=\"1\">President Vladimir Putin <a href=\"http:\/\/kremlin.ru\/events\/president\/news\/79756\" title=\"said\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> Friday that government measures to stabilize the Russian economy have begun yielding \u201cpositive results,\u201d even as the Kremlin this week slashed its annual growth outlook by two-thirds.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"2\">During a televised meeting with officials, Putin highlighted 1.8% growth in gross domestic product,\u00a0which measures all the goods and services produced in the economy, for the month of March.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"3\">\u201cThe measures and decisions the Russian government implemented recently have begun to yield a certain\u00a0\u2014 let\u2019s put it cautiously, but still \u2014\u00a0positive result,\u201d the president said without specifying what actions had contributed to the month-on-month increase in economic activity.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"3\">He urged his cabinet to focus on \u201csubstantial and sustainable\u201d growth, pointing to modest upticks in wholesale trade, retail and industrial production.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"3\">Still, the\u00a0Russian economy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themoscowtimes.com\/2026\/05\/07\/russian-economy-shrinks-in-the-first-quarter-a92713\" title=\"contracted\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">contracted<\/a> by 0.5% in annualized terms between January and March, according to a medium-term forecast\u00a0published\u00a0by the Central Bank last week,\u00a0marking its first quarterly decline since 2023.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"4\">Putin\u2019s remarks also come just days after the government <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themoscowtimes.com\/2026\/05\/12\/russia-cuts-2026-growth-forecast-as-oil-revenues-and-wartime-pressures-weigh-on-economy-a92733\" title=\"released\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">released<\/a> a grim update to its 2026 economic outlook. Policymakers now expect GDP to grow by just 0.4% this year, a significant decrease from their previous estimate of 1.3%.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"4\">The revision signals that officials are bracing for a prolonged slowdown as the country grapples with high inflation, labor shortages and the fiscal strain of the war against Ukraine, now in its fifth year.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"5\">Russia\u2019s Central Bank remains slightly more optimistic but still cautious, maintaining its 2026 growth forecast between 0.5% and 1.5%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Vladimir Putin said Friday that government measures to stabilize the Russian economy have begun yielding \u201cpositive results,\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164,45053],"class_list":["post-673198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-putin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}