Russia says recession may be significantly less deep than expected

Russian Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said on Wednesday that this year's economic recession in Russia could be significantly less deep than previous estimates. "We can say that inflation (in Russia) will clearly be much lower than the estimates ...

Russian Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said on Wednesday that this year's economic recession in Russia could be significantly less deep than previous estimates. "We can say that inflation (in Russia) will clearly be much lower than the estimates ... It is quite possible that we will look at the May data, and the depth of the decline may be a bit lower than we thought," he said.

Russia's central bank last week cut its key interest rate to the pre-crisis level of 9.5% and kept the door open to further easing as inflation slowed.