The International Monetary Fund's latest world economic outlook jacks up the agency's forecast for Russian GDP growth in 2024 to 2.6%, from the 1.1% it was seeing back in October.
Interesting comment from Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF:
Russia has successfully transitioned to a “war economy” in which state spending on the military is crowding out other forms of economic growth. This mirrors the economic model of the late Soviet Union, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF, told CNBC.
“If you look at Russia, today, production goes up [for the] military, [and] consumption goes down,” she said. “And that is pretty much what the Soviet Union used to look like.
High level of production, low level of consumption.”
GDP goes up in a war economy.
Military expenditure counts as GDP.
The peak GDP “growth” the US ever saw was in 1943, 17%
The peak for Germany, also in 1943, 10.3%