Recovery of Russian business activity slows down in August
This was largely caused by industries focused on domestic consumption of households. Driven by the easing of restrictions, budget support measures and satisfaction of deferred demand, noticeable growth of consumption was observed over the course of the previous few months. As a result, consumption largely reached its normal level by August. These are the findings of the latest issue of the information and analytical commentary ‘Economy’.
In other sectors, the ongoing recovery is not so fast overall. However, output in certain manufacturing industries has already returned to its 2019 H2 — early 2020 levels. For example, owing to a growing volume of construction work over the past months, output of construction materials increased to its 2019 average. Growth of this and other indirect indicators of domestic investment demand points to the fact that a recovery of investment activity is continuing.
Current indicators of economic activity demonstrate that a GDP decline in 2020 could be more moderate than assumed in the Bank of Russia's forecast published after the July key rate meeting of the Bank of Russia Board of Directors (a decline of