1st LD: Russian economy out of recession, enters stage of growth: PM

MOSCOW, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- Russia's economy has recovered from recession and entered a stage of growth, with its growth rate in 2017 reaching levels of developed countries, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday.

"In my opinion, today we can state that the economy has entered the stage of growth. In general, those changes that occurred in the economy are quite favorable," Medvedev said in an annual interview with reporters of five Russian television channels.

Noting that both domestic and foreign analysts expect Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) growth to reach 2 percent this year, Medvedev refuted remarks of economic stagnation and said Russia has not exhausted opportunities for growth.

"This is not a huge figure, but still a figure that is in line with the average global growth rate in developed countries," he said about the expected growth rate.

According to Medvedev, Russia's inflation is expected to be lower than 3 percent for the year 2017, a record in post-Soviet history.

Earlier this month, the Russian central bank said the country's annual inflation is likely to stay at 2.5-2.7 percent at the end of 2017, and is expected to gradually return to the target level of 4 percent next year.

The prime minister also said the national currency and the domestic financial systems are stable at present.

Although all the parameters have influence on the ruble exchange rate, the influence is not sufficient to make the rate volatile as some years ago, Medvedev said, adding the exchange rate for the U.S. dollar to the ruble remained in the range of 56 per dollar to 64-65 per dollar.

He said the financial system is currently "in a stable, balanced and normal state" due to successful decisions made by the central bank and the government.

Last month, the central bank lowered its key interest rate for the fifth time this year by 25 basis points to 8.25 percent.

The bank said it will cut the rate step by step to 6-7 percent over the next one or two years, and will also consider resuming the purchase of foreign currency when inflation stabilizes. Enditem