Regional Economy report: rising demand amid limited supply

In August—September 2021, both domestic and external demand continued to expand in Russian regions. However, the growth of business activity was hindered by negative factors. More details are available in the report Regional Economy: Commentaries by Bank of Russia Main Branches.

As before, the economy was driven by the growth of domestic tourism. Consumer activity was also boosted by fiscal measures supporting households. Enterprises from various Russian regions were implementing large-scale investment projects to improve transport and logistics infrastructure. The demand for Russian exports increased.

However, as workload in cargo transportation was high, this affected business activity in a number of industrial sectors. The harvest of certain crops was worse than last year due to unfavourable weather conditions. Businesses complained about staff shortages in the labour market. Inflation and companies’ price expectations remained elevated.

The new issue of the report covers such special topics as heterogeneous consumer price dynamics and preliminary results of the 2021 harvesting campaign.