Those Fishy-Looking Russian Economic Stats Look A Lot Like Those Fishy -Looking Soviet Economic Stats
When Russia's state statistics agency released its initial estimates of 2018 economic growth on February 4, it caught economists, investment bankers, financial analysts, and many others off-guard.
It wasn't because the reported gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 2.3 percent was earth-shattering, or even that it was the country's strongest showing in six years. It was that Rosstat's figure bettered even the most optimistic forecasts, with experts having predicted something in the range of 1.8 to 2.1 percent.
