Industrial output rose more quickly in March than in the previous month as manufacturing of steam turbines and freight cars grew, the State Statistics Service said Thursday, signaling that the recovery from the country’s worst recession may be gaining momentum.
Production at factories, mines and utilities rose an annual 5.7 percent after a 1.9 percent gain in February, the service said. Nonseasonally adjusted output surged 15.3 percent from February.
Improving global sales, higher raw material prices and accelerating domestic demand are prompting companies including TMK, Russia’s largest maker of pipes for oil and gas producers, and Gazprom to boost output.
Wage increases, retail sales growth and falling unemployment suggest “domestic demand is finally rebounding,” Alexei Moisseyev, senior economist at Renaissance Capital, wrote in a note Monday. “These factors raise tentative hopes that the economic recovery may be based on more than just the export of expensive commodities.”
Manufacturing growth was “sluggish” in March, according to VTB Capital’s Purchasing Managers’ Index. Still, a decline in new orders was balanced out by a rise in output and a weaker decline in unemployment, VTB Capital said.
Manufacturing advanced for a fourth month, rising 5.1 percent in March, the service said. Electricity, gas and water output rose 5.1 percent, while mining and quarrying added 6.6 percent.
Production of freight cars last month gained 85 percent year on year, the service said. Steam-turbine production quadrupled from the same period last year. Output of video monitors and other television equipment last month rose an annual 93 percent.
Industrial output shrank 10.8 percent in 2009 and capital investment fell 17 percent, according to statistics service figures. Production began recovering this year, expanding an annual 5.8 percent in the first quarter.
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