MOSCOW - The Russian economy has stopped decreasing and is expected to start growing next year, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday.

"We had a goal to stop the decline of production, to stop the decline of the economy. And now, on the basis of the data provided by the government and the Economic Development Ministry, I can say the fall of the economy and the decline in production have been curtailed. And we believe next year the economy will be growing," Medvedev said in a live annual interview broadcasted by Russian TV channels.

"A relatively optimistic estimate of economic growth is around 1 percent," he added, noting that the anti-crisis plan adopted in January proved to be effective, with slow but efficient progress made in import substitution programs.

The State Duma, Russia's lower parliament house, approved on Friday a rigid federal budget for 2016 based on the government's macroeconomic forecast for 2016-2018, according to which inflation in Russia would shrink to 6.4 percent in 2016 from 12.2 percent expected this year.

"I believe this forecast, this scenario is quite realistic, and we will really be able to halve the inflation to 6.4 percent," Medvedev said, adding that the inflation had practically stopped rising in the last few months.

Monthly inflation in Russia was 0.75 percent in November, practically unchanged from 0.74 in October, but up from 0.57 in October, according to the official Rosstat statistics agency.

The government's macroeconomic forecast was based on the average oil price of 50 U.S. dollars per barrel and the average ruble exchange rate of 63.3 per dollar next year, compared to an estimated average of 53 dollars per barrel and 61 rubles in 2015.(Xinhua)