Statistics: Mar business confidence rises in mineral production

MOSCOW, Mar 26 (PRIME) -- Russia’s business confidence index grew 4 percentage points in the mineral production industry and 3 percentage points in the processing industry in March, the Federal State Statistics Service said in a statement on Monday citing a poll of 3,800 companies.

“The business confidence index, which reflects generalized entrepreneurs’ behavior, increased to 2% in March 2018 from minus 2% in December 2017 in the mineral production sector, and to minus 2% from minus 5% in the processing industry, but fell to minus 6% from 3% in provision of power, gas and steam, and in air conditioning,” the statement read.

The economic situation in a company was deemed positive by 12% of managers and satisfactory by 78% of managers in the mineral production industry in March, while the figures for the processing industry stood at 10% and 75%, respectively. The number of people seeing the current economic situation as bad exceeded the number of optimists by 3 percentage points in the mineral production and by 5 percentage points in the processing industry.

Improvement of the situation in the mineral production industry in the next six months was expected by 25% of respondents, 21 percentage points more than the number of respondents forecasting a worse situation. The number of optimists in the processing sector stood at 32% of respondents, 27 percentage points more than the amount of pessimists.

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