Do We Have Global Economic Recession?

During the meeting of the EAEU Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in Saint Petersburg yesterday, RA President Serzh Sargsyan stated that, “Expectations of the citizens related to the creation and functioning of the Union, as well as its participation in the modernization and raising the standard of living remain unfulfilled. The legal base has been partly formed but the restrictions on the use of the integration potential still remain, which, in our opinion, do not allow us to respond efficiently to the worsening situation of the global economy”.

Thus, let us try to understand the real global economic situation.

In 2016, the global GDP will increase by 3.5% compared to 2015. And in 2015, the same index exceeded that of 2014 by 3.2%. Moreover, during the last 20 years, only the year 2009 registered decline (by 0.8%).

It is also worth noting that according to the prediction by International Monetary Fund, GDP in Russia will register 16% decline this year compared to 2015. The Russian economy makes up only 1.7% of the global economy (about 1/60 of global GDP). And hence, it is wrong to judge about the global economy referring to the Russian or EAEU economies.

Moreover, it is not fair to relate EAEU’s economic problems and decline in GDP to the global economic situation.