Markit says Russia's Services PMI falls to 53.5 in July

MOSCOW, Aug 4 (PRIME) -- Russia's Services Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to 53.5 in July from 56.5 in June, staying above the 50 no-change mark, which signals an overall expansion of activity in the sector, researcher IHS Markit said in a statement on Wednesday.

"Russian service providers signaled further business activity growth in July, but once again, momentum was lost as customer demand softened amid reintroduced restrictions. Foreign client demand was particularly weak, as new exports order fell following a strong expansion in June," Economist Sian Jones was quoted as saying.

New business continued rising but at the slowest rate since February. New export orders fell for the first time since February. Input costs increased significantly, most of them passed over to clients. But output costs grew at the smallest rate since April. Backlogs of work dove at the highest rate since November. Business expectations reached an annual low.

"Sadly, concerns about demand growth in the medium-term weighed on business confidence, which sank to the lowest in the year-to-date,” Jones said.

"Encouraging for businesses, however, was another slight let-up in inflationary pressures from the peaks seen in May. Softer rises in costs were also seen at the composite level, suggesting that price inflation may have peaked. This comes hot on the heels of a recent, and large, rate hike by the Central Bank of Russia."

End