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4%, to 53,300 units. The bus market in Russia is also expected to grow by 8% in 2017, reaching 11,200 units vs an increase of 15.4% to 10 400 in 2016. Fleet renewal, preparing for major sporting events, as well as state procurement of buses allow to maintain a stable demand in this segment.
The like-for-like car production in Russia surged 68% year-on-year in January 2017 to 78,800 vehicles, the Russian statistical agency Rosstat said in February. Production of trucks fell 24.7% to 4,400 as of January end. Production of buses surged 2.5 times to 702, Rosstat said. Production of internal combustion engines for motor transport grew 56.6% on an annualized basis to 15,800. This is the first big pick up in car production in several years.
Sales of new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCV) in Russia decreased 5% on the year to 77,916 vehicles in January, the Association of European Businesses (AEB) said in a report on February 9. This suggests that consumers have digested the 2017 price and product offerings and are coming to terms with the new reality,” Joerg Schreiber, chairman of the AEB Automobile Manufacturers Committee, was quoted as saying.
9.1.4 Construction & Real estate sector news
Investment in commercial real estate in Russia increased by 61% in 2016 to a total of $4.3bn c ompared with $2.67bn invested in 2015, according to analysts from consulting company Knight Frank, Vedomosti reported . The greatest demand was for office real estate in 2016, up 34%. The share of commercial real estate accounted for 24%, land for construction (22%), hotel facilities (14%), warehouses (6%). Private investors have invested $362mn (8% of the total investment amount), Knight Frank calculated.
The number of sales of new buildings in Moscow soared in January 2017 by 40% y/y but activity on the secondary market fell by 20% in the same period . There were 4,800 ownership right transfers the basis of the sales registered in January in Moscow, according to the state registration agency. That was 20% lower than the same period in 2016. However, the number of deals on mortgages increased by 5.6 times y/y to total 1900 transactions in January 2017 against 300 deals in 2016. The number of registrations of contracts of a joint construction of housing (PO) increased in January by more than 40% to 1,782 contracts.
In the last four years Moscow has seen a 2.8-fold increase of affordable housing worth up to RUB5mn , according to to estimates by the Inkom-real estate analytical centre. At present the Moscow secondary housing market has 7,259 properties for sale worth up to RUB5mn or 16.3% of the total supply. In 2013 there were only 2,573 objects for sale in Moscow.
The number of apartments sold in the prestigious business district Moscow City was up 3.6-fold in 2016 to 110 deals, according to Kalinka Group. The largest number of apartments were in the residential complex IFC Neva Towers project. The average cost was RUB521,000 ($8,968) per square meter. Prices are up 6% y/y on average, say the experts, although there is a large spread in the range of prices for the apartments on offer.
The total value of housing in Moscow at the start of 2017 was RUB52.3 trillion ($870bn), a ccording to Savills, Vedomosti daily reported – worth as
91 RUSSIA Country Report February 2017 www.intellinews.com