then there was a sharp decline when we deviated from the potential. The lockdown led to a drop in income. In these conditions, it was necessary to support recent mobile phone number data demand, and the Central Bank sharply reduced the rate. This supported lending and demand. Then came the V-Shaped Recovery. It slowed down a little in the fourth quarter of last year, when the second wave of the pandemic began, and we ourselves were afraid that this could cause a recession again. But nothing of the sort, the economy continued to grow. Now growth has even accelerated, we are returning to the pre-crisis level. This year, our GDP growth will most likely exceed 4%. And then we will return to the potential trend and continue moving. If the government takes measures aimed at increasing this potential, then its growth may accelerate even more. Such measures exist, and they are being taken, so we can expect that in the long term, the economy will be able to grow faster.
The Central Bank lowered the key rate to
a historic low of 4.25% per annum. In turn, this stimulated lending. The situation was also influenced by preferential programs of the Russian government, for example, preferential mortgages. The second important factor that stimulates demand .
Opinion, the key structural change that occurred
in our economy: the closure of borders. Traditionally, we have a very high share of imported services. Before the crisis, for example, in 2019, people spent about 2.3 trillion podemos has appeared in many polls rubles on trips abroad. This, by the way, is 2.5% of GDP, and this is a lot. In our country, foreign tourists america email spent much less, about 600-700 billion rubles. That is, there was a very large balance. The pandemic led to the fact that we almost stopped traveling, as a result, this money spilled out onto the domestic market. It was this money that greatly fueled demand.