VEB says Russian GDP falls 0.1% in December 2017

MOSCOW, Feb 1 (PRIME) -- Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) has contracted by 0.1% on the month in December 2017 excluding seasonal and calendar factors after a 0.2% contraction in November, state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) said in a monthly report on Thursday.

“December has become the fourth consecutive month of contraction that started since the beginning of the second half of the year. Compared with the same period of the previous year, GDP grew slightly to 0.5% (in December) from 0.2% in November 2017. This happened largely due to the low base of December 2016,” the report read.

Activity in the processing industries shrank by 0.4% in the month, in construction by 0.3%, in wholesale and retail trade by 0.3%, and in net taxes by 0.5%. The slowdown was partially compensated by a 0.1% increase of added value in output of the mineral production industry, a 0.4% growth in the production of power, gas and water, a 0.2% growth in activity of the transport sector, and by a 0.1% increase in the agriculture industry, VEB said.

The bank also said that Russia’s economy rose only 0.6% on the year and fell 0.2% on the quarter in October–December 2017 excluding seasonal and calendar factors.

“Our calculations show the GDP increase standing at 1.4% in 2017, while the third and the fourth quarters showed a slowdown of economic activity,” VEB Deputy CEO Andrei Klepach said as cited by the bank

VEB based its estimate on monthly data updates for the period, while the Federal State Statistics Service based its estimate on additional calculations for the whole year “which usually drastically change the state of the economy in a single quarter,” he said.

Earlier on Thursday, the Federal State Statistics Service preliminarily assessed Russia’s GDP growth in 2017 at 1.5%.

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