Russian demand remained slack in April

BOFIT Viikkokatsaus / BOFIT Weekly Review 2016/21

The volume of seasonally adjusted retail sales continued to fall last month, declining about 5 % from April 2015. Household real incomes dipped from March, and the high on-year inflation kept real incomes in April 7 % below the level of April 2015. The first data this year on fixed investment became available (since the start of the year, the figures are released only on a quarterly basis). Investment in the first quarter was down nearly 5 % from a year ago and 12 % from three years ago.

Indicators of Russian economic performance, 2011‒2016
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Source: Rosstat.

The situation for Russian production has been slightly better. In the extractive industries, which includes hydrocarbon production, the April production was clearly larger than a year earlier, although the crude oil production boom in the previous months of this year subsided. Seasonally adjusted manufacturing output increased slightly, rising about 0.5 % y-o-y. Economy minister Alexei Ulyukayev noted that the ministry estimated the GDP fell only 0.7 % y-o-y in April.

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