The Economic Development Ministry’s forecast for an 8.5 percent shrinkage this year may be “too cautious” after a report on first-quarter expenditures showed a steep drop in inventories, Troika Dialog said Friday.
“In a quite uncertain macroeconomic environment, companies ran down their inventories to satisfy demand,” economists Yevgeny Gavrilenkov and Anton Struchenevsky said in a report.
The ministry underestimated the decline in company stockpiles because it wrongly concluded that net exports slumped an annual 12.6 percent in the first quarter and government consumption declined, the report said.
The government said Thursday that net exports advanced 17.2 percent in the first three months of 2009 and government consumption rose 1.3 percent. Total private and public consumption slid 1.9 percent compared with the first quarter of 2008.
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