The industrial growth has resumed in Russia, signals the Q1 data of Russia’s statistics authority Rosstat. The annual increase of 6.2 percent from January to March was mostly ensured by processing industries, while oil production suffered the decline.
Photo: Konstantin Melnitsky
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Oil Growth Is Over
The industrial growth has resumed in Russia, signals the Q1 data of Russia’s statistics authority Rosstat. The annual increase of 6.2 percent from January to March was mostly ensured by performance of processing industries, while oil production suffered the decline. Economic analysts blame the oil industry’s stagnation on the practice of tax and political pressurizing and say that it’s time to encourage that industry by tax benefits and give incentives to explore new fields.
Russia’s industry stepped up 6.5 percent on year in March of 2008, showed the data released by Rosstat yesterday. “The result is very good, much above expectations,” said Vladimir Salnikov from the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasts. The industry gained 6.2 percent in the first quarter vs. the increase of 7.2 percent posted a year earlier.
Processing branches were again the main driving force of industrial growth. The March increase was 10.4 percent on year and the Q1 indicator stood at 8.7 percent. The economists attribute the boom of such extent to investment policy of 2007.
But the performance of extractive industries wasn’t so healthy. In the first quarter of 2008, gas production gained just 1.4 percent on year, coal stepped up 4.8 percent, iron ore had 3.7 percent and production of crude oil shed 0.2 percent. “The decline in the oil production is a very unpleasant moment. The industry manifests clear stagnation,” Salnikov said. “The more so, that it happened first time during a few years in terms of the quarter.”
The production of Russia’s oil reached its peak and won’t return to former heights. The growth in oil production in Siberia is over, LUKOIL Vice President Leonid Fedun told The Financial Times, specifying that the 2007 output of 10 million bbl a day was the highest indicator that he had ever seen in his life.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 16, 2008
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