Page 50 - RusRPTJul20

local and foreign currency deposits, shares, bonds, investment funds, pension savings and life insurance. As of end of 2019 the private wealth soared 16-fold, albeit growing at a slower pace of 11.7% since 2014. Over a fourth of total Russian private wealth could be held offshore, the study notes. BCG expects the indicator growth to slow down further to 4-6% from 2019 to 2024 as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Under two scenarios of fast rebound or slow recovery, private wealth could reach either $2.2 or $2 trillion by 2024 respectively, the consulting group believes.
After weak growth of about 1% in 2018–2019, real disposable income dropped again (by 0.2%) in the first quarter of 2020​, when the crisis was emerging. The stagnation of household incomes since 2014 is a sensitive issue for the Kremlin and the government. Plans to reverse this trend have failed. Real incomes by the start of 2020 were 7% lower than the pre–sanctions levels in 2013. Even if we take the official, rather optimistic forecast prepared by the Ministry of Economic Development, stating that real incomes will fall by 3.8% in 2020, they will already be 11% below the 2013 levels at the end of this year. Forecasts prepared by independent economists, meanwhile, are starker. Take the Higher School of Economics, which expects real incomes of Russian citizens to fall by 8–12% in 2020, depending on the scenario. Here, the gap versus 2013 will reach a critical level of 15–18%.
There are still no official data on the scale of the real wage decline in April.​ Then again, 32% of Levada Center respondents reported a reduction in wages for themselves or their family members at the end of April. By the end of May, the HSE survey showed that 45% of respondents had either lost their income completely or had suffered a significant paycut. Extra pressure on the income of Russian citizens comes from a retail lending drought. In April alone, according to the estimates of the Higher School of Economics, reductions in consumer credit drove consumers to withdraw around 400 billion roubles from their cash resources.
50​ RUSSIA Country Report​ July 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com