RUSSIA ECONOMICS
Analyst
Evgeny Gavrilenkov
Former Investment Bank Chief EconomistDatabanks
Recent Country Insights
Russia: a brief market watch
RUSSIA ECONOMICS · In Brief · 10 Oct 2024
The ruble weakened against the dollar in the past couple of weeks, and since Sep 25, it has lost about 3.5% of its value. On the one hand, the settlement for imports has more or less normalized in September, which fuelled demand for FX. On the other hand, the dollar strengthened globally, and som...
Economic growth gradually decelerates in August
RUSSIA ECONOMICS · In Brief · 03 Oct 2024
Rosstat reported that in 8M24, the output of the five basic sectors (industry, agriculture, construction, transportation, and trade) was up by 5.2% y-o-y. In August alone, it increased by a mere 1.7%. This sharp deceleration was mainly caused by agriculture, as it was down y-o-y by 14.7% and 3.2%...
Russian macro: The 2025 budget looks reasonable but the 2024 amendments puzzle investors
RUSSIA ECONOMICS · Report · 02 Oct 2024
In recent days, the Russian government submitted to the State Duma the final draft of a three-year rolling budget (2025-2027) that at a glance looked quite peculiar, although that is not unusual. As macroeconomic growth forecasts supporting the budgetary planning were usually conservative, while ...
Industrial growth moderates but still looks not too bad
RUSSIA ECONOMICS · In Brief · 26 Sep 2024
Russian industrial output grew y-o-y by 4.5% and 2.7% in 8M24 and August alone. In the latter case, according to Rosstat, it grew by 0.8% m-o-m in seasonally adjusted terms. In 1H24 industry grew by 5.0%. Some moderation of the y-o-y growth looked natural as in 2023 it grew by over 6.0% from Augu...
Russia: a brief market watch
RUSSIA ECONOMICS · In Brief · 26 Sep 2024
The CBR decided to hike the key rate to 19% (from 18%), which became the most important event for Russian markets in the past couple of weeks. In addition, the regulator kept a hawkish tone in the minutes of the BoD meeting. According to the document, the members of the BoD “calibrated” the state...
Balance of payments and budget remain reasonably stable
RUSSIA ECONOMICS · In Brief · 12 Sep 2024
The CBR reported that the current account surplus reached $40.5 bln in 8M24 (in August alone, it was $2.5 bln). As the oil prices have been on a downward trend since July, Russia’s exports also declined, having reached $33.0 bln in August (in May and June, exports were about $36.6 and $35.4 bln)....
Russia: a brief market watch
RUSSIA ECONOMICS · In Brief · 12 Sep 2024
The situation in the FX market improved. The CBR efforts supported by the market participants helped to restore regular flow between OTC and the exchanges. As a result, the spread between domestic and international USD/CNY rates evaporated. On top of that, the CNY money market in Russia stabilize...
Russian Macro: GDP Growth to Slow: Aftermath of Overheating
RUSSIA ECONOMICS · Report · 06 Sep 2024
A month ago, in the aftermath of the its key rate hike decision, the CBR warned that the Russian economy is operating at full capacity and the demand is overheated by domestic credit and generous budgetary spending. Hence, inflation was high and accelerating. Therefore, some decisive action was r...
Russia: a brief market watch
RUSSIA ECONOMICS · In Brief · 29 Aug 2024
The ruble lost about 2% against the dollar in the past two weeks. Military escalation seems to have been one of the main reasons for this move. Meanwhile, the ruble has moved closer to its fundamentally justified level. Interestingly, the spread between CNY/RUB on the exchanges and OTC started to...