RusEnergy

04.08.2005 12:33 MSK MosNews - Former sources of economic growth such as a considerable buildup of the oil and gas sector "have basically exhausted themselves", said on Thursday, Aug 4, Russia's Economy Minister German Gref. This why, he said, the rate of economic growth in the first half of 2005 has "slowed down considerably". Gref was speaking at the regular government meeting dedicated to the results of the first half of the year and to the forecasts for the second half. "What we have talked about earlier, now has become reality," the minister, quoted by the Itar-Tass agency, told his colleagues. The Economy Ministry's data shows that in the first half of 2005 economic growth in Russia amounted to 5.6 percent which is almost 2 percent lower that in the same period of last year. In the second half of 2005 GDP growth is expected at the level of 6.2 percent, with average growth rate for the year amounting to 5.9 percent. Industrial growth in the first half of 2005 amounted to 4 percent as compared with 7.3 percent last year. In German Gref's opinion such negative tendencies are explained by the decline in the rates of growth of oil production and export, of arms exports and of engineering production. In the first six months of this year the rates of export growth slowed down considerably — to 6.6 percent — as compared with 11-12 percent registered in previous years. The Economy Minister specifically noted the fact that the "export of oil has stagnated". In the first half of 2005 it grew only by 0.5 percent as compared with an annual 14 percent growth in the period between 2000 and 2004.