SLOW ECONOMIC GROWTH FORECAST FOR RUSSIA.

Slow growth in the near term for the Russian economy was the consensus that emerged from economists at a meeting of West European specialists in Cambridge March 30-31. Expressing what they stressed were their personal opinions and not the official views of their organizations, Pekka Sutela (Bank of Finland), Silvana Malle (OECD), Philip Hanson (Birmingham University) and Peter Oppenheimer (Oxford University) dissented from views expressed by IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus, who has predicted that the Russian economy will grow at up to 4 percent a year in 1996-97 and at six percent for a number of years thereafter. (Financial Times, February 23) In general, the publicly expressed views of the IMF and World Bank have been bullish, the estimate