Tue, 25 Mar, 2014 12:04:59 AM FTimes – Xinhua Report, March 25 People queue outside a branch of the Russian Sberbank in the Crimean capital Simferopol on March 21, 2014. UN chief Ban Ki-moon said on Friday the Ukrainian crisis can only be resolved through a diplomatic solution that respects the territorial integrity of the splintered ex-Soviet state. Ban arrived in Ukraine a day after holding talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin during which he expressed his deep concern over the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War. Photo – AFP / Lehtikuva. Risk of recession in the Russian economy exists, but it is too early to make precise forecasts due to high uncertainty of macroeconomic situation, head of Russia's largest bank said Monday.
Recession or flat growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) will occur if capital outflow amounts to 100 billion U.S. dollars this year, German Gref, CEO of the state-owned Sberbank, told reporters.
"So far, everything is okay. Everything is rather stable," Gref was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.
As for that Russians have converted their deposits from rubles into 70 million dollars amid festering tensions over Ukraine, Gref described that amount as "insignificant."
Real trouble might happen should capital outflows reach 100 billion dollars in 2014, as the economy will likely post a zero or even negative growth, he said.
Capital outflows amounted to 35 billion dollars in the first two months of this year, the bank head added. "By the end of the year, the outflows will be significantly larger than expected. It will be even larger than 55 billion dollars (outflow) in the previous years."
The High School of Economy, a leading Russian think tank, forecast in March that the Russian economy would head to stagflation in 2014 with sluggish economic growth and hiking inflation rate.
Shrugging off the warning, President Vladimir Putin said that the country's economy was stable despite "certain problems," citing that the country's economy grew 1.3 percent in 2013.
Sberbank accounted for 28.6 percent of aggregate banking assets in Russia as of November 2013.
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