The World Bank downgraded its forecast for Russia's economy in 2009 from a 4.5 percent shrinkage to a 7.9 percent decline, Russian media reported on Wednesday.

The Russian economy will not recover to its pre-crisis level until the end of the third quarter of 2012, the World Bank said in a report.

The Washington-based organization predicted that Russia's unemployment rate would rise to 13 percent this year.

The inflation forecast for 2009, however, remained unchanged at 11-13 percent. Falling domestic demand and lack of credit resources could help ease inflation, but a weakening of the budget policy will fuel inflation, the World Bank said.

In a separate report released on the same day, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) forecasts that Russia's economy will probably drop by 6.8 percent this year.

Russia's economy, heavily dependent on exports of energy and raw materials, has been hit hard by the global financial crisis. Russian GDP contracted by a year-on-year 9.8 percent in the first four months of this year.

(Xinhua News Agency June 25, 2009)