According to information seen by Interfax, the discrepancy between Rosstat's stats and the ministry's results appears since the ministry presented materials to the government in May before the statistics agency published its preliminary GDP estimates. Therefore, the Finance Ministry relied on information from the Economic Development Ministry, which initially estimated GDP growth for the quarter at 4% (the difference appeared partially because the increase in wholesale operations in Russia was significantly higher than what the ministry earlier forecast). Based on Rosstat's new figures, the budget deficit as share of GDP will be a bit lower for the first quarter than the figures provided by [Dmitry Medvedev] who was relying on the Finance Ministry's outdated figure - 0.52% of GDP instead of the earlier figure of 0.54% of GDP.
GDP fell 15.2% on a seasonally adjusted basis in Q1 2012 compared with Q4 2011. The GDP deflator for Q1 2012 compared with prices for Q1 2010 was 110.1%.