The Eurasian Intergovernmental Council has approved a report on the macroeconomic situation in the Eurasian Economic Union Member States and proposals to ensure sustainable economic development. The meeting was held on February 2 in Almaty.

Despite the fact that the external environment for the Eurasian Economic Union States remained challenging, there are still positive economic dynamics. For example, in 2023, there was an increase in consumer demand and investment activity, industrial production, the volume of completed construction works and other key indicators.

As Sergei Glazyev, Minister in charge of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission, emphasized, the aggregate growth of the EAEU GDP reached 3.7% at year-end 2023, which is higher than the global average. Along with that, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan became the growth leaders.

"We are witnessing a boom in investment activity. In fact, investment growth rates are three times higher than the global average. This is supported by high growth rates in manufacturing industry and construction, where they have reached 6-8%. The inflation rate has halved. The EAEU States' financial sustainability is improving, we have actually switched to internal sources of financing budget deficit. The share of mutual trade doubled last year, and in two years its absolute volume has increased by a quarter, mainly due to investment and consumer goods," Sergei Glazyev informed.

He paid special attention to developing industrial production and the import substitution growth.

"We estimate the volume of import substitution at 4 trn rubles, this is half of the potential that we could realize under the dramatically changed terms of trade. And although the adaptability of our Union is very high, at the same time our enterprises could manufacture even more products. We have no restrictions for further growth of the EAEU economy neither in terms of fixed assets, nor in labor, nor in raw materials, nor in scientific and technical potential. We estimate the possibility of increasing economic activity through the utilization of production capacities in manufacturing industry at 2 percentage points of annual GDP growth. In general, we estimate the expected growth of the EAEU GDP at 3-5% in the medium term, and the potential for additional output at even higher levels. The bottleneck is the low rate of accumulation and innovation activity. We should support economic growth by expanding loans, using special instruments for refinancing targeted loans to support joint investment projects," Sergei Glazyev noted.

The main objective of macroeconomic policy for 2024-2025 is to ensure economic growth above the global average by improving the macroeconomic environment, increasing investment in production development, enhancing scientific, technological and production potential, and implementing the Eurasian cooperation projects. It is also necessary to further reduce inflationary processes, with stabilization of the Member States' exchange rates playing an important role.

"We are embarking on a new stage in integration development and when working out the Main Directions of Economic Development until 2035, we consider it expedient to discuss the possibility of forming the EAEU development budget and think about the sources of pumping up this budget. This also includes the imposition of export duties and other instruments through which we could accumulate and direct resources for implementing major investment projects, which are now our top priority for economic development. We see every opportunity to maintain growth rates outpacing the global economy in accordance with the Main benchmarks on macroeconomic policy of the EAEU Member States for 2024-2025," Sergei Glazyev concluded.

The report will be published on the Eurasian Economic Commission's website.