Markit: Russia's Manufacturing PMI rises to 51.5 in February

MOSCOW, Mar 1 (PRIME) -- Russia's Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) grew to 51.5 in February from 50.9 in January, remaining above the 50 no-change mark, which signals an overall increase, researcher IHS Markit said on Monday.

"Russian manufacturing firms continued to signal a promising start to 2021, as operating conditions improved for the second month running. Output and new order growth accelerated despite difficult external demand conditions," Sian Jones, economist at IHS Markit, said, as cited in the statement.

A fast growth of the production volume in the middle of February favored the overall improvement in the sector.

New orders increased by the highest pace since August 2020, consumer demand and the new client appearance rate also grew, but new export orders fell in February, albeit at a lower rate than in January.

“Meanwhile, supply chain pressure worsened markedly and resulted in a quicker rate of input cost inflation. Firms were able to partially pass on higher input prices to clients through the fastest increase in charges for six years,” Markit said.

As a result of capacity pressure at suppliers, cost burdens rose substantially in February. The rate of input price inflation was among the steepest since February 2015.

“That said, manufacturing firms were able to pass on some of their higher costs to clients through a marked rise in charges. The pace of output price inflation accelerated to the sharpest in six years,” the research said.

The rate of job creation quickened and was the fastest since December 2018. Although backlogs of work continued to fall, the rate of contraction was the slowest since last September.

“Finally, business confidence among Russian manufacturing firms remained upbeat in February,” it said.

“The level of positive sentiment improved to the strongest since January 2020. Optimism regarding an increase in output over the coming year reportedly stemmed from hopes of an end of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

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