Russian industry resumes growth

Russian industrial output grew in March despite expectations of a decline, according to official figures released on Wednesday.

Industrial production was up 1.2% last month compared to the previous period last year, and 13.4% compared to February, data published by the Federal Statistics Service shows.

An earlier survey of economists carried out by Bloomberg predicted a 1.4% decline in Russia’s industrial production.

Growth was reported across a wide range of industries in March year-on-year. The biggest gains in manufacturing were made in finished metal goods (30.3%), computers, electronic and optical products (22.5%), electrical equipment (21.5%) and other transport (13.1%).

There were also declines in several areas, such as timber and the pharmaceutical industry. Mining and resource extraction were down 3.6%. The drop could be attributed to lower levels of the extraction of crude oil, business daily Kommersant suggested, noting that the Federal Statistics Service stopped releasing detailed data for oil production last month.

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