Page 27 - RusRPTJun19

Most Russians (85%) are happy with their job, according to the state owned pollster, the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM), TASS reported on May 13. "The majority of Russians like their job: 85% of respondents stated on the matter," the centre reported. More than one-third of Russian citizens (34%) said that they selected their job because of the circumstances, according to the poll. Almost the same number (30%) opted for their workplace guided by their interests. Still, 17% of the respondents answered that they "had no choice" during employment, and the same amount found a job based on financial aspects. Two thirds of those polled (68%) also think that their salary "will not grow, most probably" if they work longer and more productively. Besides, more than half of the respondents (56%) stated that they would keep their job even if they had enough money not to work.
3.0 Macro Economy 3.1 Macroeconomic overview
Ministry of Economy sees April GDP growth at 1.6% year-on-year.
According to MinEco, GDP growth accelerated to 1.6% y/y in April after a weak performance in March (0.2% y/y). However, for 4 months the growth remains below 1% y/y (0.8% y/y). The improvement in April was mainly driven by significant hike of industrial production (4.6% y/y vs 1.2% y/y in March). At the same time, according to Rosstat, consumer demand remains weak as retail sales continued to deteriorate (+1.2% y/y in April vs +1.6% y/y in March) while real wages growth slowed down to 1.6% y/y vs 2.3% in March.
Russia's GDP growth slowed notably to 0.5% year-on-year in 1Q19, down from the strong 2.7% y/y seen in 4Q18 and 1.9% y/y in 1Q18, according to the preliminary data by Rosstat statistics bureau.
The 0.5% growth is well below the 0.8% expected by the Ministry of Economic Development and 1%-1.5% by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) in the reporting quarter, and is the slowest quarterly growth since 4Q17.
Slow GDP growth reinforces the first-quarter base sector statistics, which showed rather moderate results and had analysts hoping for a fiscal spending stimulus later in 2019 supporting the output.
Analysts surveyed by Vedomosti daily note that economic growth in the reporting quarter has alarmingly underperformed even the most pessimistic forecasts, while pointing that for an emerging economy 0.5% growth is close to recession.
The economics ministry attributed the slowdown to weak domestic demand with consumer demand compromised by shrinking real income (down by 2.4% in 1Q19) and the VAT hike. Overall in 2019 the ministry forecasts 1.3% GDP growth versus 2.3% seen in 2018, the CBR forecasts 1.2%-1.7% growth, which is conditioned by the launch of 13 national investment project and the inflow of public spending.
Chief economist of BCS Global Markets Vladimir Tikhomirov attributed the 1Q19 underperformance to Vedomosti to three factors: weak consumption as
27 RUSSIA Country Report June 2019 www.intellinews.com