Industrial output surged in April as the manufacture of cars, steel pipes and freight cars increased, signaling that a rebound from the country’s worst recession may be picking up pace.
Production at factories, mines and utilities rose an annual 10.4 percent after a 5.7 percent advance in March, the State Statistics Service said Wednesday. Nonseasonally adjusted output shrank 3.4 percent from the previous month.
Improving global sales, higher raw material prices and accelerating domestic demand are prompting companies including Chelyabinsk Zinc and carmaker AvtoVAZ to boost output.
“It bodes well for our expectation that GDP growth will pick up again in the second quarter after the disappointingly weak first quarter,” said Anna Zadornova, an economist at Goldman Sachs Group.
Output rose an annual 2.9 percent in the first quarter, below the median forecast of a Bloomberg survey, because the “rapid industrial growth” through March wasn’t translated into final consumption, Alfa Bank economists Natalia Orlova and Dmitry Dolgin wrote in a note. ?
The economy may grow more than 5 percent this year, Central Bank First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev said May 14, after a 7.9 percent slump in 2009.
Economic growth in the second quarter will probably accelerate to as much as 6 percent because of “declining inflation and state support of the automotive and real estate sectors, which have shown signs of faster growth in recent weeks,” Orlova and Dolgin said in the May 17 note. ?
Manufacturing rose an annual 15.7 percent in April, according to Wednesday’s report. Electricity, gas and water output rose 2.6 percent, while mining and quarrying added 5 percent.
Production of cars last month gained 53 percent year on year, the statistics service said. Steel pipe production rose an annual 47 percent. Output of freight cars more than doubled last month from the same period last year.
Industrial output shrank 10.8 percent in 2009 and capital investment fell 17 percent, the statistics service said. Production began recovering this year, expanding an annual 5.8 percent in the first quarter.