Russian-annexed Crimea has experienced the fastest economic growth in Russia in 2019 so far, the RBC news website reported on Monday. Crimea has received large cash injections from Moscow since 2014, when Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine. More than $13 billion in Russian funds will have been spent on the Crimean economy between 2015 and 2022.

Crimea’s growth in January-March 2019 was buoyed by construction and manufacturing, which grew by over 20 percent each, RBC cited research by the Institute for Complex Strategic Studies (ICSS) as saying. Agriculture, retail and services in Crimea averaged 3 percent growth in January-March this year. Construction in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol — Russia’s second-fastest growing economy — grew by almost 71 percent in January-March 2019, with agriculture, manufacturing, retail and services averaging 3.4 percent.

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