Russian industrial production should start growing again by the end of the year and a conservative forecast of 2010 GDP growth would be 1%, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Thursday.

He said that over the whole of 2009, the government expected industrial production to contract 12.5%, but said it would "maybe switch to the side of growth at the end of the year."

"We expect, by a conservative estimate, a very cautious, unoptimistic forecast, economic growth next year will be around 1%," Kudrin said, adding that in his opinion Russia would see growth of 2.5-3.5% a year for the next three years.
sections: Economics