Employment dropped sharply during the recession, contributing to a sharp rise in the unemployment rate from around 4.5 percent in the middle of 2007 to over 10 percent in October 2009. Extraordinary actions by authorities around the world, including the Federal Reserve, prevented full-scale financial and economic collapse, and the global economy stabilized around mid-2009. But since then, the recovery has been bifurcated. While emerging economies have rebounded rapidly, the developed world has grown only slowly. This has hastened a historic shift in the balance of economic power that was already underway before the crisis. In the United States, the recovery has proven to be persistently weaker than expected. Growth has been insufficient to either bring down unemployment significantly or to achieve a self-reinforcing cycle of strengthening confidence, demand, income and employment. Although the latest news on the U.S. economy is somewhat more encouraging than that from earlier in the year, we should not take much solace from that. After a very weak first half, when growth was less than one percent, economic activity has strengthened somewhat and inflation pressures are starting to ease. Growth in the third quarter is currently estimated 2.5 percent, and recent indicators suggest growth in the fourth quarter could be somewhat higher. However as we look toward 2012 the U.S. economy continues to face several obstacles to a robust economy. Accordingly, I expect growth of about 2.75 percent for 2012, not much higher. We also continue to face significant downside risks, mostly related to the stress in the eurozone.
Various investment activity and business sentiment indicators show mixed dynamics. In particular, new (especially, export) order expectations in industry remain low. This reflects a slowdown in global economic growth, continuing global trade tensions and geopolitical risks. These are all restraining factors for our economy. Regarding the three-year forecast horizon, our expectations here have not changed overall since October. We expect that the GDP growth rate will gradually increase to 1.5–2.0% in 2020 and to 2–3% in 2022. Successful implementation of national projects should provide the largest contribution to the increase in growth rates. This will support internal demand while external conditions remain a factor of uncertainty in the forecast. As regards oil prices. Last week, the OPEC+ countries reached a deal to extend oil production cuts until the end of March 2020.As of now, we stick to a conservative assumption for oil prices in our forecast: their reduction to 55 US dollars per barrel in 2020 and to 50 US dollars per barrel in 2021 and further on. We will adjust this opinion depending on, among other factors, future changes in the OPEC+ agreements and global demand for energy commodities. As to the balance of payments, we have slightly adjusted some indicators for this year, taking into account the actual data available. Let me remind you that the current account balance will 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  gradually decrease over the forecast horizon remaining sustainably positive: approximately to 3% of GDP in 2020 and to 1–2% of GDP in 2021.