Russia’s economic growth remained slow

The preliminary Rosstat figure shows Russian second-quarter GDP growth was 0.9 % y-o-y. When combined with first-quarter GDP growth of 0.5 %, first-half growth was 0.7 %.

Growth in domestic demand has gone fairly sluggish. Retail sales in May-June were up 1.4 % y-o-y and by just 1 % in July. Fixed investment growth increased slightly from 0.5 % y-o-y in the first quarter, but just to a mild 0.7 % in the second quarter.

Manufacturing output growth rose to about 3 % y‑o‑y in June-July, while growth in mineral extractive industries (includes oil & gas) slowed to around 2.5−3 %. After a couple of years of brisk growth, growth in the volume of goods transported has slowed notably this year. Growth fell to 1.3 % y‑o‑y in the entire January-July period and further to around zero in the May-July period.