Commonwealth of Independent States countries, struggling to adapt to the collapse of the Soviet Union, nearly all recorded sharp falls in economic output in the first 10 months of the year, new data showed Monday.


With the 12 CIS countries also hard-hit by lost trade ties, only Armenia showed any growth at all compared with the year-ago period, according to CIS Statistics Committee figures, quoted by Interfax.


Russian GDP was 15 percent lower than a year earlier and industrial output fell 22.4 percent. However, Russia's decline in output has been slowing. The State Statistics Committee said last month that industrial production rose 7.5 percent in October alone, after a 6 percent rise a month earlier.


Armenia's tiny recovery, of one percent, came from a very low base. Like several other former Soviet republics, Armenia's economy has been severely disrupted by ethnic conflict.


It also increased its industrial production by 1.3 percent while industrial output in the CIS as a whole was 24.6 percent lower than a year earlier, Interfax said.


"In Armenia or Georgia, you can have a high rate of growth but it is not very meaningful," said a Western economist. "The best prospects are probably Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan if they can solve a few political and organizational problems."


Economists are generally wary of economic data in the former Soviet republics, noting that figures frequently take little account of a growing private sector and a big black economy. But the data provides a rough indication of a country's performance.