Industry Ministry believes industrial output will grow by 4.4% this year

According to an estimate by the Ministry of Industry, Science andTechnologies, the volume of industrial production will grow by 4.4% inRussia in 2002. Industry, Science and Technologies Minister Ilya Klebanovannounced this information at he Second Baykal Economic Forum in Irkutsk.According to him, the industrial output increased by 3.5% in January-Julyof this year compared to that of the corresponding period of 2001, and theGDP grew by 4%. The amount of investments in fixed capital grew by 2.6% inthe first 7 months of this year. In total, it is expected to increase by4-5% during 2002. The real individual incomes were up 7.8% in January-July2002 compared to those of the corresponding period of last year. Klebanovunderlined that the factors influencing the economic growth in Russia hadchanged substantially in the past 2 years. Thus, according to him, of thetotal volume of economic growth, 37% were due to the external factors in2000, and the corresponding figure for this year is 12.5%. .