By Andrei Skvarsky.
A Deutsche Boerse-owned research firm argues that in June Russian companies have been slightly more optimistic about Russia’s business environment than in May.
After “a five-month low” in May as a result of western sanctions that punished Russia for its annexation of Crimea and came on top of an economic slowdown that had begun many months before, companies were a little more upbeat about the level of demand for their products, production rose marginally, and more orders were coming in, although the situation in the labour market was slightly worse than last month, MNI said in a report on the latest of its monthly surveys.
Nevertheless, June’s business sentiment was still a good way down from the start of 2014.
The surveys, which involve interviews with executives at about 200 companies representing the manufacturing, services and construction industries and agriculture and listed on Moscow Exchange, underlie the monthly MNI Russia Business Indicator, a sentiment-measuring index.
June’s indicator showed an increase of about 2.5% from May, but was still 12.6% below the level of June 2013.
“Russian business sentiment bottomed out in the final quarter of 2013 and bounced back at the start of the current year boosted by the Sochi Olympics. In Q2 2014, confidence was 8.8% below the previous quarter and 15.2% below the corresponding period a year ago,” the report said.
Philip Uglow, chief economist of MNI Indicators, the MNI division that carries out the monthly polls and calculates the sentiment indices, said in a comment on the latest survey: “Business sentiment has weakened over the past year considerably, although June showed some signs of stabilisation. While the situation in Ukraine rumbles on, the rhetoric and action on sanctions has calmed, easing some concerns from businesses.”
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