SERGEI TSUKHLO: “THE INDUSTRY IS ENTERING A NEW CRISIS IN MARCH”
The first estimates of the industrial optimism index in March “do not give grounds at the first sight to assess the situation as catastrophic,” Sergei Tsukhlo, Head of the Business Surveys Laboratory, Gaidar Institute noted in an interview to the Kommersant daily.
The composite index fell fr om 30 points to slightly below zero, that is, approximately wh ere it stood in June 2020. At the same time, the Gaidar Institute still registers shortages of reserves with enterprises “in the first month of the regular crisis.”
Satisfaction with demand volumes fell to the level of December 2021 (remaining above the index value seen a year before), while actual assessments of demand and output plummeted from the previous record-high levels to those seen in H1 2020 (see the diagram). “A detailed analysis shows that March is going to become the onset of the crisis for the Russian industry, and enterprises do not expect a bounce from the bottom as it happened in 2020 after a downfall in April,” concludes Sergei Tsukhlo.
Satisfaction with demand volumes fell to the level of December 2021 (remaining above the index value seen a year before), while actual assessments of demand and output plummeted from the previous record-high levels to those seen in H1 2020 (see the diagram). “A detailed analysis shows that March is going to become the onset of the crisis for the Russian industry, and enterprises do not expect a bounce from the bottom as it happened in 2020 after a downfall in April,” concludes Sergei Tsukhlo.