Novak explained how Russia manipulates statistics
25 May 20:24
Russia’s official economic indicators do not reflect the true state of affairs. The gap between what the statistics show and what is actually happening runs into the tens of percent.
Economist Andrei Novak spoke about this on the "Komersant Ukrainian" YouTube channel .
According to him, the tradition of “embellishing” statistical data has existed in Russia for a long time, but now it has taken on a particularly cynical character. It is telling that the decline is recorded in the first months of the quarter, and then the data suddenly “evens out.”
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“There are, let’s say, the facts, and there are notes on paper. Russian statistical agencies still embellish these notes on paper, but the actual facts have long since ceased to match these notes,” Novak noted.
According to the economist, other indicators paint the real picture: depleted local budgets, the mass shift of enterprises to a four-day and even three-day workweek, delays in salary payments, and the fact that the Russian Ministry of Defense has stopped paying for its own military orders.
“If we’re talking about real budget figures and the state of enterprises, the picture there won’t be minus 0.3% or minus 0.5%—it will already be down by tens of percent,” he concluded.
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