Economics News

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization, completing an 18-year campaign to join this key international organization. The upper house of the Russian parliament ratified the country's entry in July. Russia’s $1.9 trillion economy, which is now the world's 9th largest, will become a WTO member within 30 days of ratification.

Russia’s largest bank Sberbank took 17th place in the world’s top 20 most valued banks. Sberbank’s value was estimated to be worth $64 billion. Sberbank also took 7th place among the US and European banks, which is led by HSBC. Sberbank share have risen by 13.5% at the LSE since the beginning of the year. Some experts believe that Sberbank’s high position is partly due to other European banks losing their value due to the Eurozone debt crisis.

­According to the IMF’s mid-year update of its economic forecast, Russia’s 2013 GDP growth outlook was cut from 4% to 3.9%, but left unchanged its 2012 economic growth at 4%. Russia's debt situation looks favorable compared to the other BRIC countries – 11.3% of GDP. This makes the state debt is low compared to 22% of GDP in China, 68% of GDP in India and 64.2% of GDP in Brazil.