LONDON (Reuters) – Russia’s economy will shrink 15% this year and 3% in 2023 as the hit from Western sanctions, an exodus of companies, a Russian ‘brain-drain’ and collapse in exports wipe out 15 years of economic gains, a global banking industry lobby group said.
In its report on Russia economy’s following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the Institute of International Finance’s (IIF) said it did not expect a ceasefire in the war and that it was likely sanctions would be expanded and tightened in the coming months.
Western sanctions following the invasion had triggered the “full disintegration of 30 years of investment”, Elina Ribakova, the Institute of International Finance’s (IIF) deputy chief economist told reporters during a media briefing on Wednesday.
“What is the number you are going to put on ripping apart 15 years of value chains,” she said, adding that should Europe wean itself off Russian energy exports the economy would be hit even harder in the medium-term.
(Reporting by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes, editing by Karin Strohecker)
