MOSCOW, July 25 (UPI) -- With oil holding relatively stable, there are few restrictions on meeting inflationary goals by the end of next year, a Russian finance minister said.
"Inflation [in 2016] will be in the range of between 5.5 percent and 6 percent," Deputy Finance Minister Maxim Oreshkin said Monday. "This is how it is going now."
Crude oil prices moved from above $100 per barrel in 2014 to below $30 per barrel in early 2016 because the global economy was too slow to take on the excess supply on the market. That price collapse hurt economies like Russia that depend in part on oil for revenue.
With oil prices holding relatively stable at around $45 per barrel since May, the Central Bank of Russia said growth was "imminent." By the bank's estimate, growth of 1.6 percent in gross domestic product is expected next year.
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Russian finance planners said the 2016 budget was based on oil priced at around $50 per barrel, a price target in line with recent trading sessions
A survey of the Russian economy from the International Monetary Fund found the economy would shrink another 1.2 percent this year, though some form of recovery was expected in 2017. Inflation, meanwhile, should reach the 2017 goal of 5 percent.
"What is very difficult to tell at this point is whether Russia has already reached the recovery phase," the IMF's chief of mission for Russia, Ramirez Rigo, said in a recent statement.
Oreshkin, for his part, was quoted by Russian news agency Itar-TASS as saying there were no "serious restrictions" to meeting economic targets by next year.
"There could be a small deflation," he added
