Central bank believes Russian economy is close to bottoming out

The Central Bank could lower its re-finance rate once again in July, says its re-elected head Sergey Ignatiev. The rouble could weaken further, but there are no evident reasons for that.

The percentage of private bad loans has reached 5.5% – more than $6.5 billion dollars. Bad loans to non-financial companies rose to 9%. At the same time, capital adequacy continues to increase. Ignatyev believes the Russian economy is close to the bottom in terms of GDP performance.

“I am an optimist. I think that GDP will be better than the World Bank predicts. We will hit the lower boundary in the second quarter, if we haven’t already. I am referring to the lower boundary of GDP excluding seasonal factors.”