* OECD says Russian economy to shrink by 5.6 pct in 2009
* Russia will be the hardest hit BRIC economy
* Russian officials say growth could resume in Q4
(Releads with OECD, adds comments, details)
By Toni Vorobyova
MOSCOW, March 31 (Reuters) - The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development gave on Tuesday the most pessimistic outlook for the Russian economy to date, saying it would shrink by 5.6 percent, despite new upbeat comments by officials.
"The output is set to continue falling at least through mid-2009. Negative wealth effects and rising unemployment will weigh on private consumption, while falling demand and financing constraints will hit investment," the OECD said in a report.
The OECD said Russia would be the hardest hit economy among the BRIC top emerging countries club as India and China will still show strong growth of 4.3 and 6.3 percent respectively and Brazil's economy will contract only 0.3 percent.
In 2010, Russia could return to a small growth of 0.7 percent, but much will depend on the price of oil, it said.
On Monday, the World Bank said the Russian economy will contract twice as fast as the government expects or by 4.5 percent and the country must step up spending to save 4 million from poverty and stave off social unrest [ID:nLU211000].
The Russian economy has been rocked by a collapse in oil prices, vast outflows of capital and waning demand for exports as the global economic crisis intensified.
But officials have shown signs of optimism about the economy in the past month after the oil price recovered from its lows.
The government sees full-year contraction of just 2.2 percent and First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said this month the economy was near the bottom and things could improve by the end of the year.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin echoed his comments on Tuesday saying the economy will resume growing in the fourth quarter of this year.
"According to our forecasts, we will see growth beginning by the end of the year," Kudrin said.
Russia's Economy Ministry expects GDP to fall 7 percent in the first quarter after an 8 percent slump in January-February.
Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Klepach said on Tuesday there were some downside risks to the government's GDP view, but that he does not expect the contraction to be as sharp as 4.5 percent.
The OECD said oil prices and the global economic situation were key for Russia's prospects.
"Even though policy responses are providing considerable support to the economy, the combination of extremely large adverse external shocks and certain domestic vulnerabilities -- notably fragile confidence in banks and the currency -- make a quick return to strong growth unlikely", it said.
"If global conditions turn out even worse than expected, recovery in Russia could be delayed into 2010 or beyond. On the other hand...if higher (oil) prices are sustained then recovery could be earlier and more rapid than projected," it added. (Reporting by Toni Vorobyova, writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; editing by Ron Askew)