After a small growth in February, Russian industrial production continues to decline
In March 2016, the industrial production growth index began to decline again in Russia. After small growth in February, it suffered a 0.5% decline for the year.
The Index of Industrial Production for Russia in March 2016 declined by 0.5% as compared to the first month of last spring, as indicated by Rosstat Materials. Industrial production in February rose for the first time in a year, increasing by 1%. However, as compared to 2015, there were 29 days in February this year.
Earlier, experts from the Higher School of Economics' Center for Development predicted that in March the situation will continue to be on the verge of stagnation with a small chance of “going into the red” for Russian industrial production.
In March, for the production and distribution of electrical energy, gas and water, the decline was more than the average year - minus 0.8% against minus 0.5%; this is despite the fact that in January (due to lower temperatures) the industry showed a 2.5% growth and in February managed to stay afloat.
Production volumes in the mining industry were up by 4.2% as compared to March 2015. In particular, coal extraction increased by 6.2%, oil by 5.3% and non-metallic constructions by 8%.
However, the general indicators of industry did not show an improvement in the mining sector due to the deepening of the decline in the processing industries (down by 2.8% opposed to down 1% in the “long” February). The quickest drop in March 2016 was in fuel oil production (down 36.5% for the year), ceramic building (down 33.8%), brick (down 18.2%), machine tools (down 26.9%) and cars (down 25.9%).
In 2015 as compared with 2014, industrial production dropped by 3.4%. However, the output of manufacturing enterprises dropped by 5.4%.