Russia To Overtake Germany As World's Fifth-Largest Economy

If only it weren't Russia it would be so attractive.
As we noted in a 2014 post when James Grant was pitching gold and Russian equities:

 Russia is Russia, where people with an actual understanding of the place travel in armored Mercedes limos and have a hidey-hole in London....

From ZeroHedge:

The Russian economy is apparently more durable than many Western politicians imagined.
Despite years of international sanctions and low oil prices have dragged on Russia's economy, which pushed the Russian economy into a recession during 2015, UK-based global bank Standard Chartered predicted in a report published this week that Russia will overtake Germany as the world's fifth largest economy, possibly as early as next year, according to RT.

In a report outlining its projections for the global economy through 2030, StanChart projected that China would overtake the US a the world's largest economy as explosive growth in Asia will eventually see some of the Continent's largest economies unseat Western economies in the top rankings. By 2030, the bank expects seven of the world's ten largest economies will be Asian economies.

Using a combination of PPP-inflected exchange rates and nominal GDP growth, the bank ranked the top five economies as China, the US, India, Japan, and Russia. Rounding out the top 10 countries will include Germany, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey, and the UK.

"By 2020, a majority of the world population will be classified as middle class. Asia will lead the increase in middle-class populations even as middle classes stagnate in the West," said Standard Chartered researcher Madhur Jha.

StanChart aren't the only ones who are optimistic about Russia's prospects. The World Bank said in its economic outlook that it expects GDP growth in Russia to accelerate to 1.8% in 2020 and 2021, compared with 1.6% last year. It attributed this growth largely to "relatively low and stable inflation and increased oil production." The IMF has also raised its forecast for Russia’s GDP growth in 2019 to 1.8%, with the fund anticipating that the impact of rising oil prices would outweigh the impact of sanctions.

Though when it comes to Russia's overtaking of Germany, a slowing in the economic growth engine of Europe is also partly to blame. Germany slowed sharply in 2018, growing by 1.5%, its slowest rate since 2013....

...MORE

Here's the Russia ETF for those who don't have Putin's cell number: