Page 47 - RusRPTSept21

Firms continued to utilise stocks of purchases and finished goods to fulfil new orders. Post-production inventories fell at the slowest pace since January 2020, however, amid weak demand conditions, Markit said.
Finally, business confidence regarding the outlook for output over the coming year strengthened in August. Optimism stemmed from hopes of greater client demand in the coming months. Russian corporations are currently the most optimistic they have been at any time in the last decade.
4.3.2 Corporate profits dynamics
Russia’s corporates are still earning outsized profits compared to previous years and earned more than in any time in the last five years in June. Russian companies books cumulative profits over the first six moths of this year of RUB11.6 trillion ($157bn), more than double the RUB4.3 trillion they earned in the same period a year earlier and a third as much as the RUB8 trillion they earned in 2019, the last strong year of growth.
On a month-on-month basis companies earned RUB2.1 trillion in August 2021, around twice as much as they earned in the previous two years: RUB1 trillion and RUB1.3 trillion in 2020 and 2019 respectively.
47 RUSSIA Country Report September 2021 www.intellinews.com