Russia's Economy Contracts By 7% In Q1 2009

According to Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach last week, Russia's economy shrank by 7 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2009, a staggering turnaround for an economy which has just enjoyed eight years of solid oil-fueled growth.

"These figures are worse than we expected," Klepach said at a press conference in Kiev,citing preliminary figures. Klepach also stated that net capital outflows reached $33 billion in the first quarter of 2009, following record outflows of $130 billion in the second half of last year.

The Russian State Statistics Service have also released official gross domestic product figures for the fourth quarter of 2008. GDP was up 1.2 percent year on year, the worst reading for any quarter since the first quarter of 1999, and down from a revised 6 percent in the previous three months. The World bank are now suggesting that the present slump may be deeper than the one that followed the government debt default and ruble devaluation in 1998.

Certainly the data are bleak. Industrial production contracted for a fourth consecutive month in February - falling by 13.2% year on year - as the credit squeeze and falling incomes eroded demand for metals, cars and consumer goods. Retail sales contracted in February for the first time since February 1999. Unemployment was also up, at 8.5 percent in February, the highest level since January 2005.

Manufacturing output plunged with the collapse in demand in the last two months of 2008, and it is likely to contract further in 2009. According to Rosstat five of 14 major manufacturing industries reported outright output declines in 2008, with electronics, electrical, and optical equipment hardest hit (-7.9 percent), followed by textile and sewing (-4.5 percent) and by chemicals (-4.2 percent). Most of the dislocation took place in November and December 2008, when total manufacturing output respectively fell 10.3 and 13.2 percent (year-on-year). As credit continues to tighten and demand to fall, manufacturing is likely to contract further in 2009. According to recent statistics, manufacturing output dropped 24.1 percent in January 2009, compared with January 2008, and 18.3 percent in February 2009, compared with February 2008. In February 2009 the most significant declines were registered in the production of electro-technical and optical equipment (-46.6%), other non-metal products (-33.3%), and transport and transportation equipment (-31%).

Tighter credit, collapsing global demand, huge global uncertainty, and rising unemployment have hurt both investment and consumption growth in Russia. According to Rosstat, total fixed capital investment grew 9.8 percent in 2008, compared with 21.1 percent growth in 2007. More worrisome is the investment decline by 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 (year-on-year), largely reflecting escalating liquidity problems in the banking sector and the resulting credit crunch and a deceleration in consumption growth due to rising unemployment and lower growth. (World Bank Report, April 2009)

GDP Indicator Shows 5.4% Contraction in March


The latest data we have to hand confirm the ongoing character of the contraction. The Russian economy is thought to have declined by 5.4 percent in March compared with March 2008, according to the latest GDP indicator estimate provided by VTB Capital. The VTB GDP indicator also registered an average 4.4 percent contraction for the first three months of 2009, which would be the worst decline since the economy shrank 5.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 1998. The difference between the VTB estimate and the 7% estimate put forward by Klepach would lie in the fact that the VTB indicator does not include contstruction, and construction activity has declined sharply in recent months, so the two pieces of data are consistent with one another.



Purchasing power has been reduced by lower wages and less access to credit, togther with rising unemployment rates. 6.4 million Russians, or 8.5 percent of the economically active population, were unemployed in February, a 5 percent increase over January and a 20 percent increase on February 2008. The World Bank forecast recently that unemployment would rise to 12% in 2009.

The weakening in retail sales and other consumption indicators is not that surprising given the strength of the contraction, and especially since there is now growing evidence that Russia's employers, in order to make cost savings while maintaining staff levels during financial crisis, are more and more resorting to salary reductions or part-time working schedules. This approach is thought to be being used widely and appears to have much more legitimacy under Russian law than simply telling employees to go home and take unpaid leave. Employers are being advised to take special care when unilaterally modifying major terms and conditions in employment contracts, since although under the Labour Code, changing the terms and conditions of an employment contract is permitted only by mutual written agreement of both parties, there is an exemption from this rule – Article 74 of the Code - which specifies that in the event of a change in organizational or technical working conditions which make it impossible for the previously agreed terms of an employment contract to be maintained, an employer is entitled to unilaterally change such terms on his or her own initiative.

As a result of this contraction in output and weakening in the labour market real incomes have declined substantially in Russia since the autumn of 2008. Rising unemployment and worsening enterprise finances (wage arrears have increased considerably) have meant that in the fourth quarter of 2008 alone, real disposable income dropped 5.8 percent year on year, and by 10.2 percent in January 2009 (again year-on-year). And unpaid wages as a share of total enterprise turnover tripled to 0.12 percent in December 2008, compared with August 2008. The stock of wage arrears as of March 1, 2009 (8 billion rubles or about USD 240 million) remains small but is likely to increase as the crisis grows. At the present time such arrears are thought to affect up to 450,000 people, significantly less than 1 percent of total employment. Growth in real wages came to a complete halt in January-February 2009, following double-digit increases in previous years.

Russian Services Contract Less Slowly In March

Activity in Russia’s service sector continued to contracted in March, although the seasonally adjusted headline VTB Services Purchasing Managers Index rose to 43.9 in March from 40.0 in February. Since any readings below 50.0 signals contraction, we can see that while Russia's services are still contracting, they are contracting somewhat less rapidly than in earlier months.



Activity and new business both declined for the sixth consecutive month, however the rate of decline in the volume of new business was at its lowest rate since last October. However a survey-record decline in employment was registered in March, with redundancies at their most severe in hotels and restaurants. Firms raised output prices at a weaker rate in March, as input price inflation moderated and pricing power remained weak due to falling demand for services.

“Surging price competition on the back of weak market demand has urged companiesto tighten their cost cutting programs. Among the measures that have been applied are further redundancies that resulted in the fastest rate of employment contraction in the history of the survey. The input price inflation eased slightly, however, the pressure of utilities charges remains significant,” Svetlana Aslanova, an analyst at VTB Capital, commented on the survey.

As Does Manufacturing


Russian manufacturing contracted at the slowest pace for five months in March as companies reduced their stocks of unsold goods and the decline in new business eased, according to the latest PMI report from VTB Capital. The VTB Purchasing Managers’ Index was at 42 last month after a 40.6 reading in February. Stockpiles of unsold goods fell at the fastest rate since December 2005, according to the survey of 300 purchasing executives.



Inflation Rising Again

Russia’s inflation rate rose to a five-month high in March as the weaker ruble boosted import prices. The rate rose to 14 percent from 13.9 percent in February, while consumer prices grew 1.3 percent month on month, compared with 1.7 percent in February.




Inflation was spurred at the start of the year by the weakening ruble, which pushed up import prices, helping the annual rate jump to 13.9 percent in February from 13.4 the month before. The ruble has now lost 29 percent against the dollar since August. The most recent spike in inflation is evidently producing quite a headache for the Central Bank, since chairman Sergei Ignatiev last week that if April's inflation is “significantly less” than it was a year ago, the central bank may consider cutting interest rates for the first time since 2007, giving some kind of monetary relief to an economy which is badly in need of it. Russia’s inflation rate went as high as 15.1 percent last June, and has since come down somewhat from that peak, but really the record of the central bank in containing inflation has been pretty abysmal.

Bank Rossii has been forced to raise its refinancing rate twice since last November, to the current level of 13 percent, in an attempt to limit the amount of rubles available to banks and companies and to slow the decline of the ruble against the dollar. On the other hand the central bank may be in danger of excessive optimism at this point, with Ignatiev telling journalists that his expectation was that the economy may pick up within “several months,” thus trying to offer hope that Russia's banks won’t suffer that “second wave” of crisis that Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said may hit as bad loans eat up capital. I am of the opinion that Kudrin is right to be cautious here.

Rising delinquency “is a serious problem, but I don’t share the opinion that a second phase of the crisis is unavoidable,” is Ignatiev's view. Overdue retail loans rose to 4.4 percent as of 1 March from 3.2 percent on 1 September. “I believe the most serious phase of the economic crisis is over," Ignatiev told journalists. Would that he were right, unfortunately I think he is wrong, the worst is still ahead.

Obviously the continuing inflation is a problem for Russia's central bank since they would obviously like to offer monetary easing to the economy, just as the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England are doing by bringing their benchmark rates close to zero to bolster banks and pull their economies out of recessions. Bank Rossii last cut the refinancing rate in June 2007, and it has now increased the repurchase rate charged on central bank loans four times since November.


The refinancing rate, seen as a ceiling for borrowing money and a benchmark for calculating tax payments, is currently at 13 percent after being raised in November and December. The central bank increased the repo rate charged on central bank loans twice in February.


Ignatiev admitted that problems with dealing with non-performing loans “could arise", and that he did not "think this is just empty talk,” although he stressed Bank Rossii would seek a solution should the banks be forced to increase reserves to deal with possible losses on loans. Bad loans are still a very low proportion of total debt, nut they are rising. NPLs held by OAO Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, now make up about 2.8 percent of the bank’s loan portfolio, Chief Executive Officer German Gref last week.


Also, on the general economic front the pessimists more or less balance out the optimists. The latest in the pessimist camp, Vladimir Yakunin, head of OAO Russian Railways, said this week that the slowing in the decline of cargo shipments in March doesn’t seem to him to indicate that the country is pulling out of its economic crisis.

“We are only at the beginning of the crisis and we should wait for better and
more solid indications,” Yakunin, chief executive officer at the Russian state
rail monopoly which operates the world’s longest rail network, said in a
Bloomberg Television interview in his Moscow office today. “We didn’t yet pass
the middle point of the crisis.”

Railway cargo turnover fell by 15.8 percent in March from a year earlier, compared with a 32 percent fall in January and a 26 percent decline in February. The data is a “leading indicator of the trend in Russian industry,” according to VTB analysts in their GDP indicator. Yakunin said Russian Railways is “fighting” to limit this year’s cargo turnover drop to 19 percent as it is forced to slow down its development amid falling investment.

We also learn this week that Siberian Services, an oil-drilling company among whose clients are to be found OAO Rosneft, has defaulted on $100 million of bonds, thus becoming the first Russian borrower to fail to repay its foreign debt this year. Siberian Services didn’t redeem the 13.75 percent notes due 2010 by an April 3 deadline after bond holders exercised a so- called put option, according to Bloomberg news, citing some of the investors involved.


State-owned Finance Leasing skipped an interest payment on $250 million of securities in December, according to Bloomberg. Russian borrowers are struggling to refinance about $100 billion in foreign notes maturing this year as banks reduce lending following $1.3 trillion of losses and writedowns since the start of 2007.

Conflicting Futures?

While the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank are forecasting that the Russian economy will decline by 5.6 percent and a 4.5 percent, respectively, in 2009, the Russian government is still stubbornly holding fast to its official forecast of a 2.2 percent fall. Publicly government officials are sticking to their view, and diiging in around the idea that they expect a recovery in the final quarter. Deputy Economic Development Minister Klepach said that the government forecast takes into account a package of anti-crisis measures currently being debated by lawmakers that should bolster domestic demand and help boost GDP. Without it, the economy could contract by 4 percent to 5 percent, Klepach noted.

The Central Bank, on the other hand, continues to forecast a 4.5 percent contraction for the current year.

The Russian Cabinet approved last month a revised budget containing the first deficit in 10 years. The budget anticipates a deficit of 7.4 percent of projected gross domestic product, but since the current forecast is for a GDP contraction of only 2.2%, the final deficit may be considerably larger. The Finance Ministry is now transfering money from the Reserve Fund to cover the deficit, and anticipates using some 2.7 trillion rubles this year to help fund the budget gap.

The Ministry of Finance has released the main parameters of its revised federal budget for 2009 which is based on lower oil prices (USD 41 a barrel, Urals) and a drop in budget revenues from the original 21.2 percent of GDP (under the old assumption of USD 95 a barrel) to 16.6 percent, or RUB 6.72 trillion. At the same time, expenditures will be increased by RUB 667.3 billion to RUB 9.69 trillion, to produce a deficit of RUB 2.98 trillion (about 7.4 percent of GDP), a massive reversal of the fiscal position from the 4.1 percent surplus in 2008.

The total consolidated general government deficit is expected to be around 8 percent in 2009 deficit and will be financed largely from the Reserve Fund (7 percent of GDP) with modest domestic borrowing (up to 1 percent of GDP). With a large fiscal deficit, however, and the need to preserve some reserve fund resources for the uncertainty likely to extend into 2010, the space for more fiscal stimulus this year appears limited.


So the level of the contraction which the Russian economy undergoes in 2009 really is rather big beer, since it will condition the size of the eventual fiscal deficit, and the percentage of the Reserve Fund which will need to be used this year. If there is no rebound in oil prices in 2010 then Russia's position can complicate on a number of fronts, since the Central Bank Reserves will be significantly depleted, the Reserve fund also, and there may be less room for fiscal easing in the face of potential credit rating downgrades, while monetary easing may also prove difficult given the need to support the currency, and protect Central Bank Reserves. Which brings is back to that “second wave” of crisis that Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said may hit as bad loans eat up capital. Russian overdue bank loans are increasing by 20 percent a month, according to OAO Sberbank Chief Executive Officer German Gref this week. He also stated that about 3.7 percent of Russian bank loans are currently delinquent, a figure which compares with the 40 percent level hit at the peak of the 1998 crisis. The IMF are already predicting a 10% loan default rate, but at this pace we will hit that level in the autumn, while the 40% rate looms in the spring of 2010, unless there is significant upward movement in oil prices. In fact a Bloomberg survey of 17 bank analysts this week gave a mean estimate that Russian bank bad loans will quadruple to $70 billion this year, with non-performing loans rising to 12.8 percent of the 18.4 trillion rubles ($549 billion) owed by Russian companies and individuals. HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest bank, expects delinquencies to reach 23 percent, Europe’s highest rate after Hungary at 25 percent.

All in all then, 2010 could be a very hard year for Russia and its citizens.

Russian Manufacturing Contracts More Slowly In March

Russian manufacturing contracted at the slowest pace for five months in March as companies reduced their stocks of unsold goods and the decline in new business eased, according to the latest PMI report from VTB Capital. The VTB Purchasing Managers’ Index was at 42 last month after a 40.6 reading in February. A figure below 50 means a contraction and above 50 implies growth. Stockpiles of unsold goods fell at the fastest rate since December 2005, according to the survey of 300 purchasing executives.

“Stocks of unsold goods declined which, combined with a sluggish contraction of the new business sub-index, suggest that the headline index may keep rising into the second quarter,” Dmitri Fedotkin, a VTB economist, said in the statement. Still, “no sharp recovery” in the index is to be expected.

The index showed contraction for the eighth straight month, a longer period of decline than the one registered in 1998, when the government devalued the ruble and defaulted on $40 billion of debt.

The manufacturing workforce shed jobs for the 11th month in a row, the longest period of contraction in the survey’s history, VTB said. “Firms reported that the redundancies resulted from lower workloads and the subsequent need to cut spare capacity,” it said in the statement.

OAO Severstal, Russia’s biggest steelmaker, plans to cut as many as 9,500 jobs at its Russian units, Chief Executive Officer Alexei Mordashov said on March 11. The metals industry as a whole could cut as many as 60,000 jobs this year, or 5 percent of the workforce as demand and prices slump, the Industry and trade Ministry said.

Russia's Contraction Slows In February

News from Russia's crisis stricken economy has certainly been a lot less dramatic of late, but even as Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin seeks to reassure us that everything is coming back under control and that lending in the Russian economy is "in full swing" once more, doubts remain. Are we simply seeing the temporary impact of all those stimulus measures that have been put into place, or is a more general recovery possible at this point?

Certainly if we come to look at the purchasing managers indexes we can see that things were better in February than in January. The VTB services index rose to 40 in February from 36.8 in January, although since any reading under 50 indicates contraction, it is clear that Russia's services industries are still shrinking at a pretty hefty rate.

The manufacturing PMI also improved slightly, rising to 40,6 from January's record low of 34.4.



This impression gained from the PMIs is also confirmed by the latest data for Russian industrial production, which dropped an annual 13.2 percent in February, the fourth month of decline, but still rather better than January's 16% decline.



And there are other signs of stabilisation, since job losses are now flatlining at 300,000 per month, while nominal wages have risen from January's eight month low. Even a 14.1 percent fall in capital investment in January was less than expected.

However, whatever the improvements, the Russian economy continues to contract, and the February reading for the Markit GDP Indicator fell to an annual contraction of 4.7%, down from a revised 2.9% drop in the first month of the year.

And indeed the contraction may be even sharper, since Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina informed the Russian government last week the Russia's gross domestic product is likely to contract by 7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, according to Ministry estimates. However the ministry is still sticking to its forecast for a full-year contraction of just 2.2 percent, suggesting they continue to hope for a dramatic turnaround in the second half of the year.


So the data we now have to hand for the first two months of 2009 point to a further outright contraction over the first quarter, following on the back of the sharp growth downturn in the final quarter of last year. The PMI-based Indicator of year-on-year GDP has now fallen continuously since hitting 7.4% last June and has been in negative territory for the past three months.

The Total Activity Index rose to 38.8 in February from 32.1 in January, indicating a further sharp decline in output, although this was the weakest rate of deterioration since last October.

Russia's economy will contract 2.2 percent this year after 5.6 percent growth in 2008, according to Economy Ministry estimates, and the government anticipates a budget deficit equal to 8 percent of gross domestic product, its first in a decade.

However a number of factors lead towards the conclusion that this estimate for 2009 GDP growth may be rather over optimistic. Only today Ford Motor Co., whose Focus is the top-selling western car in Russia, cut its industry forecast for the country, saying sales may plummet as much as 50 percent this year in what used to be their second-fastest growing auto market. Ford, which stopped production at its St. Petersburg plant for one month from mid-December to mid-January, is looking at further adjustments to “plan realistic inventories,” according to the company statement.

Russian car sales in the first two months of 2009 were down 36 percent to 252,314 vehicles.

The Russian government has responded to the fall in car sales by pledging to spend about 220 billion rubles to aid the industry, offering to subsidize loans on car purchases and making plans to upgrade at least 12 percent of the federal car fleet. The government also raised import duties on cars and trucks to encourage domestic production.

On another front Russian wage arrears climbed by 16 percent in February, the second consecutive month that this figure has risen. Total unpaid wages were 8.09 billion rubles ($235 million) on March 1 following a 49 percent in January, according to the Federal Statistics Service. Half a million people were affected by the delayed payments, with 47 percent of the money overdue coming from the manufacturing sector. The unemployment rate rose 8.1 percent in January, the highest level since March 2005, with the total number of unemployed up by 300,000 and reaching 6.1 million people.

List Of Companies Approved

The work of trying to contain the damage continues on an almost daily basis. Earlier this week it was announced that Russia’s Trade and Industry Ministry have approved a list of 600 companies who may apply to receive state funds during the economic decline. The ministry, whose budget before the crisis reached 120 billion rubles ($3.59 billion), is already “actively” involved with a third of the companies on the list.

Russia's Economy Declines At An 8% Annual Rate In January

Russia’s economy contracted at an annual rate of 8.8 per cent in January, according to the latest statement by the Russian economy minister. This data point, which provides us with the latest confirmation that a very sharp contraction is now taking place in Russia, follows last week's announcement by economic development minister Elvira Nabiullina, economic development minister, that the economy shrank by 2.4 per cent between December and January. Industrial production also fell 16 per cent year-on-year in January, while there was a 17 per cent decline in construction.

It also gives us some indication of the viability of VTB’s Russian GDP Indicator (as posted here) which indicated a year on year rate of contraction of 4 percent in January, down from December’s 1.1 percent decline, and November's 2.1 percent expansion. This is somewhat under the actual reading, but it is an estimate in real time (we got this at the start of February) and it was by far the nearest estimate I have seen.

In its official estimates, the economy ministry said the global downturn was filtering deeper into the real economy and had begun to weigh heavily on ordinary citizens.

"Among the negative consequences of the deepening crisis, we can now count a notable drop in the population's real income growth (6.7 percent), increasing unemployment and, as a result, falling consumer demand," the ministry said. "The most important reasons for the economic fall of January 2009 is the significant fall in industrial production, the decline in investment activity, a drop in construction and slowing consumer demand."

Among the hardest-hit segments, the ministry cited fertiliser producers, which cut output by 42 percent, while tyre producers reduced their output to almost zero. Car production also fell, by 80 percent, and the ministry cited lack of cheap car loans amid a general decline of personal income and excessive production in 2008. Retail sales and agriculture still remained in positive territory areas which were still growing - at 2.4 percent and 2.6 percent respectively - although they are already down sharply and there is evidently more to come.



Exports fell more than 40 percent to $20.2 billion as the country exported less oil and gas at lower prices, while imports fell by a third to $10.3 billion as a 35 percent rouble devaluation, which continued throughout January, started hitting importers. Consumers of heavy machinery reduced purchases of foreign equipment by 47 percent and food and chemical imports fell by 25 and 29 percent, respectively.

All of this, of course, has quite serious implications for Russia's public finances, and the budget deficit is now projected to reach 8% of GDP in 2009, according to Nabiullina, who said the figure took into account so-called quasi-budgetary expenditures in the form of subordinated loans to business, which would (in principle) be repaid at a later date. The federal budget for 2009 originally set expenditures at 9.024 trillion rubles ($250 billion at current exchange rates) and revenues at slightly over 10 trillion rubles ($277 billion), but the drop in oil prices has cut the expected income dramatically.

The budget was based on an average oil price of $95 per barrel for the year, but is being recalculated based on a figure of $41 per barrel.

Russia's Finances and Economy Look Nervously Towards The Abyss

“A significant amount, if not all, of the speculative attacks on the ruble are funded by the central bank itself,” said Vladimir Osakovsky, Moscow-based economist for UniCredit

The underlying dynamics of the current ruble devaluation are provoking more than a little consternation in Russia at the moment. In the forefront of the debate are data from Bank Rossii (the central bank) which show they lent 7.7 trillion rubles ($214 billion) in overnight and seven-day loans (secured with bonds or other collateral) in just 16 trading days last month - this was about double the 4.8 trillion rubles provided via so-called repurchase auctions in December. Over the same period the ruble lost 18 percent against the dollar. The question is, is there a connection here?

Russia's banking authorities now certainly seem to think there is and Kommersant reported (Friday) that policy makers planned to reduce bank loans in an attempt to limit bets on the ongoing ruble devaluation. As a result the ruble remained safely within the target band all day Friday, and there was no need for any kind of intervention.

The decision follows several days of severe criticism over the way in which Russian banks appeared to be using the loans being made available to them. Oleg Vyugin, former deputy central banker and currently chairman of MDM Bank has suggested that Russia's banks have now accumulated about $40bn in hard currency deposited for their clients on accounts with the central bank and another $40bn on accounts held with foreign banks.

Policy makers lifted the rate on overnight and seven-day loans obtained through the auctions by 1 percentage point to 11 percent this week, the highest since at least November 2007. Banks used “almost all” the money from loan auctions to bet against the ruble, Natalia Orlova chief economist at Alfa, Russia’s largest non-government bank, said. Policy makers “have basically fueled the speculation on the ruble themselves.....The market is intent on testing the central bank’s ability to spend reserves and they’re going to really have to tighten liquidity, or something, if they want to have a hope against that.”

“If they really wanted to stop speculation, they have to raise the rates significantly, say to 20 or 30 percent, for a short period of time,” said Evgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Moscow-based brokerage Troika Dialog. “One day they have to say: Give me my money back, no more repo is available.” “They have to raise interest rates if they want to stop speculation.....But there is still a lot of concern among the authorities that the banking sector might collapse.”

According to Bloomberg, Russia's banks bid for 505 billion rubles in repo auctions on Thursday, more than the 402 billion rubles actually lent. Banks also requested 139 billion rubles in an auction of unsecured loans on 3 February, about six times the 23.5 billion rubles provided. The possibility of obtaining such loans was opened up to over 100 Russian banks in November as part of a plan to boost liquidity amid the seizure in global credit markets. The extra funding has helped lower the average interest rate banks charge each other for overnight loans, known as the MosPrime rate, to 10.83 percent on Wednesday from a record 25.17 percent on Jan. 27.

Bank Rossii may send representatives to individual banks to check on their foreign-currency holdings, said Stanislav Ponomarenko, chief economist in Moscow at ING Groep NV. President Dmitry Medvedev told the Federal Security Service, Russia’s spy agency, to monitor the allocation of state funds on Jan. 29, saying it is “doubly criminal” for investors to get rich off the crisis.

VTB GDP Indicator Shows Severe Contraction

In any event, while a lot of people in the Russian establishment seem busy trying to decide which side they are batting for in all this, a Russian economy which is basically being starved of liquidity is now spirally downwards and downwards. The most recent piece of evidence for this comes from the latest reading on VTB’s Russian GDP Indicator which showed that economic output contracted at a year on year rate of 4 percent in January, down from December’s 1.1 percent decline, and November's 2.1 percent expansion.

According to Russian economy Ministry estimates the economy will contract by only 0.2 percent this year after expanding 5.6 percent in 2008, so this estimate now seems hopelessly out of date. If we look at the monthly contraction rate as a reflection of the current quarter on quarter contraction, we find a rate of minus 1.6%, which means that the present rate is something like a 6.5% annualised shrinkage rate. At present this is stationary and not accelerating, but it is quite strong, especially for an economy which only six months ago was expanding at a 6.5% annualised rate.

Services Contract But Less Strongly Than Manufacturing

Russia's services industries are still not contracting as fast as the manufacturing sector (34.4), but with the Russian economy shedding 800,000 jobs in December the outlook for improvement is not exactly bright. The PMI reading was little changed - and close to December's all-time low rising to 36.8 in January from 36.4 the previous month. Since a reading over 50 indicates expansion, and below 50 a contraction, this is still a pretty hefty rate of shrinkage.

Meantime retail sales grew at the slowest annual pace in nine years in December while disposable incomes fell 11.6 percent.

“Business activity and incoming new business contracted further to record lows due to still weak demand,” said Svetlana Aslanova, senior corporate analyst at VTB Capital, in the report. “Low levels of workloads have forced companies to cut costs” resulting in jobs cuts, she added.

New Policies From The Administration?

With declining reserves in the background, and oil prices which may well not rebound very much this year to concentrate their minds, the Russia adminstration indicated on Wednesday that it was about to make a significant change in the policies it is deploying to fight the financial crisis. The move basically involves switching from bailing out individual companies to attempting to directly support the economy through the banking sector. At the same time Moscow is planning large budget cuts in an attempt to limit the fiscal deficit since letting it run too high threatens to eat up Reserve Fund resources far too quickly if oil prices remain low for any length of time. The general impression is that the administration has now lost hope it can avoid the crisis simply by increasing public spending and is instead digging in deep in an attempt to endure what might turn out to be a rather prolonged recession.

The policy change was announced by Igor Shuvalov, Russia's first deputy prime minister, who stressed the government was deliberately choosing to allow gross domestic product growth to fall to zero or below in 2009 to stabilise the economy and maintain foreign exchange reserves. He was thus explicitly rejecting the advice of those economists who had suggested using the reserves to finance a budget deficit of 10 per cent of GDP to promote growth. Of course the risk here is that this will produce a much stronger GDP contraction with unknown social consequences.

Shuvalov also indicated the government would invest “several percentage points of GDP” in strengthening the banking sector, covering “possible future losses” and supervising a consolidation plan that would see the number of banks cut from 1,100 to 500. Alexei Kudrin, the finance minister, confirmed during a visit to London that the state was preparing to inject $40bn (€31bn, £28bn) capital into banks provided that the money was channelled into the real economy. This would follow last year’s Rbs960bn package of subordinated loans.

Shuvalov indicated some key industrial companies would continue to get priority, headed by military enterprises, Gazprom, the gas monopoly, electricity groups and the state railways. This is a far more tightly focused target than the previously announced list of 295 industrial companies deemed worthy of financial support that included oligarch-led groups such as Rusal, the aluminium company, and Norilsk Nickel, the metal combine. Shuvalov suggested that the state should not have lent $4.5bn to Rusal, Oleg Deripaska’s aluminium group, on the security of its 25 per cent stake in Norilsk Nickel, the metals company, when it was clear these shares were worth only $1.5bn.

In line with the change in policy Vladimir Putin gave the go ahead on Thursday for a second wave of bank bail-outs to extend up to Rbs1,000bn ($28b) in order to refinance the banking sector with new capital and subordinated debt in an effort to transfer the burden for bailing out companies on to commercial banks. Of the three big state-controlled banks, VTB is to receive Rbs200bn in new capital, state-owned VEB is to receive Rbs100bn in capital and Rbs100bn in subordinated debt, and Sberbank, the huge savings bank, may receive funding in the region of Rbs500bn.

The moves will increase the state’s stakes in these three banks, boosting its role in the Russian economy. The state’s stake in the three banks are Sberbank 61 per cent, VTB 77.5 per cent and 100 per cent VEB. Vladimir Putin said Moscow could also inject up to 100bn roubles in subordinated loans – Tier 2 capital under international banking rules – into private banks but said the government would not seek stakes in return.

Andrei Sharonov, a former deputy economy minister, who now works as
managing director of Troika Dialog, the Moscow investment bank, said the second
bail-out of the banking system was part of an effort to switch the government
anti-crisis programme to the banking system instead of bailing out individual
companies, which must repay some $140bn in foreign debts this year.

Danske Bank A/S, which ranks itself among the five biggest traders of the ruble
through Finnish subsidiary Sampo Bank Plc, said yesterday the ruble will be
allowed to trade freely “within weeks,” because pressure on the currency won’t
abate after the decline in oil prices, according to Lars Christensen, Danske’s
head of emerging -markets strategy. Urals crude, Russia’s chief export blend,
has fallen 70 percent to $43.01 a barrel since reaching a record in July, below
the $70 average required to balance the government’s 2009 budget. Energy
accounts for more than 70 percent of Russia’s exports.

Russian Manufacturing Continues The Rapid Contraction In January

Russian manufacturing contracted at its second-fastest pace since 1998 in January as companies continued cutting production and jobs amid collapsing demand at home and abroad, according to the latest manufacturing PMI report from Markit Economics and VTB Capital. VTB’s Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to 34.4 from December’s record low of 33.8. The length of the manufacturing contraction is now just one month short of the slump that occurred during the 1998 economic collapse. Basically we still need to see the services PMI (out later this week), but this looks to me (on a rough calculation basis) like a 1% quarter on quarter GDP contraction rate, or an annual rate of GDP contraction of 4% in January.

“There were numerous reports from panelists that the weaker ruble had partially offset the impact of falling global commodity prices, resulting in a slower overall rate of deflation,” the report said.

Meanhwhile the ruble weakened again this morning, and fell below the central bank’s target exchange rate of 36 per dollar, only two weeks after Chairman Sergey Ignatiev widened the trading band and committed to using reserves to defend the new level. The ruble depreciated as much as 1.7 percent to 36.3550 per dollar in trading this morning, its weakest level since January 1998.

The Ruble Fall Continues As Unemployment Soars

Russia's current woes can be readily summed up in just one single variable - the value of the ruble - and this value, as we all know, is falling. Almost uncontrollably so.

The bank’s target will be “very quickly” breached without more intervention, said Gaelle Blanchard of Societe Generale SA in London. “Right now the market is convinced it wants to see the ruble lower,” Blanchard said. “As long as the central bank gives these targets, then speculators are going to have something to aim for.”

“The market is testing whether the authorities see this band as something permanent or something that will move,” said Lars Rassmussen, an emerging markets analyst at Danske Bank A/S. “Our view is that they’ll move it because it’s not worth wasting the reserves for a band that is obviously not wide enough.”

First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov expressed regret that the general population failed to fully understand the Central Bank’s policy on the ruble’s exchange rate against the dollar/euro basket. The government did let the ruble depreciate, but it did so gradually, providing plenty of time for people to decide which currency to keep their savings in.

In fact the ruble fell sharply again last Friday, and was on the brink of breaching the target trading band, yet one more time, following its biggest monthly depreciation in more than a decade. The ruble was down at one point by as much as 1.4 percent on the day (to 35.59 per dollar), 1.1 percent away from breaking the 36 per dollar limit. The Russian central bank has now expanded its trading range 20 times since mid-November in a series of attempts to defend the currency. These continuing attempts to hold a line have lead the central bank to use up more than a third of its foreign-currency reserves since last August, a period in which the ruble has fallen some 34 percent slide against the dollar.

The ruble has now depreciated by 20 percent since the start of the year - making January already the worst month for the currency since 1998. And there is obviously more to come, with the government now expecting a decline to 36 per dollar following the latest widening in the trading band, according to First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov speaking in the State Duma last week. This "managed devaluation" is seen as an attempt to avoid a reapeat of what happened back in 1998, when the ruble fell by as much as 29 percent in a single day. Yet the currency has now lost over 30% against the dollar (and weakened substantially against the euro) since last summer and all this spells disaster for domestic banks and industrial companies, whose debt is denominated in dollars and euros but who depended on rouble-denominated revenues.

One of the principal problems facing those banks and companies who have this mismatch if that they have insufficient foreign exchange liquidity, while other parts of the banking and corporate sector are better positioned. That is the aggregate external position understates the extent of the problem, since the lack of internal confidence makes it hard for those who are under severe stress to find the appropriate lenders. In part as a an attempt at a solution to this problem state owned investment bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) is preparing to issue foreign-currency bonds to be placed among Russian banks with excess of foreign currency and then redistribute the currency raised to those in need of foreign currency liquidity. During the last quarter of 2008 the net increase in foreign currency assets in the corporate sector was over $100 bln. According to the central bank external corporate debt redemptions totaling $120 bln are anticpated during 2009, which indicates a shortfall of only $20 billion, yet according to Interfax the total volume of applications for fx support to VEB from Russian companies is $80 bln. Which suggests that a sizeable chunk of the $100 bln accumulated by Russian corporates at the end of last year was not intended for foreign-currency debt redemptions but was instead a means a protecting free liquidity from falling in value. That is they converted their liquidity into USD and Euro to avoid losses (or make gains) from the devaluation.


Inflation Always Carries A Price

The root of Russia's most recent problems is very evidently all that excess inflation which Russia has seen over the last 18 months (if it hadn't been for the inflation there would have been no devaluation, and hence no issue with forex loans), inflation which has taken badly needed competitiveness from Russia's manufacturing industry at a time when the oil and commodity sectors are in the grips of a severe price slump (which means their contribution to the economy is greatly reduced).

Obviously Russia's situation doesn't make for any easy answers, and even devaluation brings with it the problem of the attendant inflationary uptick from imported goods. Russia's month on month inflation is expected to reach 2.4 percent in January 2009, according to the latest estimates from the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), and the Economy Ministry currently estimates Russia's whole year inflation could be as high as 13 percent in 2009. In fact the annual rate for last December was 13.3% (see chart below), so they seem to anticipate very little change in the situation. In fact they may be unduly pessimistic here, since they are almost certainly underestimating the force of Russia's current economic contraction, and the collapse in internal demand may well bring Russia's inflation down more rapidly than they are expecting.




Monetary Tightening In The Face Of An Economic Slump

Basically the Russian economy is currently suffering the effects of a long term policy of trying to control the currency value at the same time as being "soft" on inflation. This approach evidently hasn't worked out, and it is to be hoped that some lessons for the future may have been learned, but the sorry reality is that those currently responsible for managing Russia's economy are left with only hard policy options at this point, if they wish to avoid another default. Basically, and on top of all the rest, the economy has two added problems (apart, that is, from the drop in oil prices, the internal credit crunch and the slump in domestic demand): the high inflation, and the capital exit.


Russia's reserves are disappearing for a whole variety of reasons at this point. First there are foreign investors who are simply pulling out - investors have removed about $290 billion from Russia sincethe start of August, according to the latest estimates from BNP Paribas. Secondly the Russia central bank has been using reserves to defend the currency. According to the Central Bank last week, Russia's foreign exchange and gold reserves dropped by nearly $10 billion from $396.2bn to $386.5bn in the week to 23 January.Citigroup calculate that the bulk of that fall was the by-product of a strong negative revaluation effect - which may have exceeded $8 billion - and the strengthening of USD vs EUR and GBP probably subtracted $5.5bn and $3.7bn, respectively, from the total in USD. Nonetheless Russia has spent very large quantities of foreign exchange on supporting the ruble since August . According to Kommerant reports Bank Rossii told Russian bankers in a meeting in the middle of the month that their “managed devaluation” of the ruble was over, but as we can see, this is far from being the case. Nikolai Kashcheev, head of economic research at Moscow-based MDM bank, Russia may abandon the ruble's dollar-euro trading band completely and allow the currency to trade freely, with the central bank only intervening to avert serious economic shocks using a so-called “dirty float” mechanism.

“A dirty float would look like it was a free market but the central bank would still have a measure of control,” said Kashcheev, who forecast the ruble may fall 5.9 percent against the dollar if the central bank made the switch this week. “It would be a preferable outcome to the devaluation because what they’re doing at the moment is costing too much in reserves.”

The central bank sold $3.2 billion last Friday alone, and $800 million Thursday, according to MDM Bank estimates. The bank appears to have stayed out of the market between January 23 and 27, the first three days after widening its exchange-rate band.

Other demands on foreign exchange comes from Russian corporates who need to pay off foreign exchange debt, or simply protect their ruble liquidity from the devaluation fall, and from individuals and households who wish to do the same.

As a result of the reserve and inflation pressures Russia’s central bank has little alternative but to maintain a relatively tight monetary stance, and indeed the bank raised two key interest rates for the third time since the start of November last week, with the repo rate for one-day and seven-day loans being raised to 11 from 10 percent. Now I say "relatively tight", since obviously with CPI inflation currently running at over 13%, even 11% interest rates are negative in Russia (by around 2%), and thus Russian policy rates could be considered somewhat accommodative (though not as accommodative as would be desireable given the strength of the hit the economy just took). At the end of the day terms like "tight" and "accomodative" are relative terms, and it all depends what you are dealing with.

The Central Bank does not rule out the possibility of a new wave of the crisis erupting in the banking sector, the bank's Chairman Sergei Ignatyev told the Russian State Duma on Friday. He noted that although such a risk was unlikely in the near term, it was still fairly possible in the foreseeable future. The new wave of crisis may be brought about by a rise in loan defaults, Ignatyev explained. The Central Bank is holding meetings with bankers and keeping a watchful eye on the situation, the official said, adding that the bank was ready for any new developments. He also noted that an increase in certain banks' capitalization might prove necessary.

Russian media are also reporting that the government anti-crisis committee (which is headed by Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov) is putting together a rescue plan for carmaker OAO GAZ. If confirmed the move that would mark the first custom built financial rescue of an individual company by the government during the current economic crisis. OAO GAZ, which is based in Nizhny Novgorod, may need $1.6 billion in state funds to continue operating. Shuvalov has confirmed that the government plans to offer substantial support to Russian companies. “The list of such companies will be expanded to 2,000,” he said, noting that it would include both companies involved in the technical modernization of the national economy and those in a difficult financial situation. “To save all companies is impossible and unnecessary".

Another company in difficulties is United Co. Rusal, who are set to sell shares in a private placement as they seek to refinance about $16.3 billion of debt, according to billionaire shareholder and company Chairman Viktor Vekselberg speaking in Davos. The Russian company owes $7 billion to foreign banks, about $6.5 billion to domestic lenders and about $2.8 billion to Mikhail Prokhorov’s Onexim Group. Rusal is in “active” talks with creditors. Rusal, which is Russia’s largest aluminum company, will cut output by as much as 10 percent and freeze investment for about three years. Aluminium fell to a five- year low this month, and profit is projected to slump 88 percent to $476 million this year, according to an estimate by ING Groep NV. Aluminum needs to trade at $1,700 a metric ton for Rusal to be able to service its debt and pursue new projects, according to Vekselberg - aluminum for delivery three months forward was 1.2 percent lower at $1,350 a ton as of 12:18 p.m. on Friday on the London Metal Exchange. Rusal was forced to seek a $4.5 billion bailout from state-owned Vnesheconombank in October to refinance loans used to buy 25 percent of OAO Norilsk Nickel, Russia’s biggest metals and mining company.

So far Russia’s indebted companies have been bailed out by the government, but this year they are due to repay an additional US$117bn to foreign creditors. With opportunities to roll over existing debt limited, and the government’s reserves down by US$200bn since August, the chances of continuing rescues by the federal authorities appear greatly reduced. According to the latest central bank data, some US$117bn of debt needs to be repaid this year, with US$52bn owed by banks and US$62bn by corporations. Debt restructuring looms on the horizon.

Unemployment Surges

Evidently the crunch in the financial economy - Russia's base money shrank dramatically (from 4283 bln rub to 3896 bln rub, that's not far short of 10% in a month) between 29 December and 26 January - is having a serious impact on the real economy, and nowhere is that clearer than in the unemployment numbers. As could have been expected Russia’s unemployment rate rose sharply in December (up to 7.7 percent from 6.6 percent in November), its highest level since November 2005, as industrial production shrank the most in ten years. The total number of unemployed reached 5.8 million people, as compared with 5 million in November.



What is most notable is the sharpness of this rise. Alongside the rise in umployment wages have started to fall, and the average monthly wage fell an annual 4.6 percent in December to 17,112 rubles ($517.85), the first contraction since October 1999 when they fell 2.2 percent. Real disposable income fell 11.6 percent, the biggest contraction since August 1999, according to Rostat. So this is how one part of the mechanism works basically. The oil price drops, the ruble devalues, fx loans become unsustainable, new funding dries up, and then the real economy sinks like a stone, and as the unemployment goes up, household and investment demand go down, and economic activity heads on a downward spiral.

GDP Growth Outlook

First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told the State Duma today. “The crisis will continue for three years, of which 2009 will be the most difficult,”

If we now turn to economic forecasts for 2009, Economy Minister Alexei Kudrin said last week that Russia's 2009 GDP growth would be close to zero - a figure which was revised down from the Economy Ministry's earlier 2 percent estimate.

“We must be prepared for further economic decline and a conservative tax and budget policy. Yet we will implement our main programs involving the social protection of the population. The reserves we have built up allow us to be up to that task,” Kudrin stressed.

Current government estimates also project capital flight to be between $100 billion and $110 billion in 2009, while budget revenue will be far below the planned RUB 10.9 billion (approx. $307.9bn). Kudrin's present estimate is RUB 6.5 trillion (approx. $183.6bn), with oil exports expected to generate the bulk of the revenue. He says the federal budget is expected to decline by 40 percent, from a projected $300 billion [10.9 trillion rubles] to about $185 billion [6.5 billion rubles]. Russia’s current budget is based on an average oil price of $70 a barrel, even though Urals crude, the country’s chief export blend, has slumped 69 percent from a July record to $43.72 a barrel. As a result Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has told the Finance Ministry to recalculate the budget, with the Economy Ministry now forecasting oil to trade at an average $41

.“These are the real challenges we face for our economy and the budget system,” Shuvalov said. “If we don’t change our budget targets, and simply replace this lost revenue with money from the reserve funds, the budget deficit will be 6.1 percent of GDP.”

Kudrin is suggesting that Russia will probably spend the bulk of its 7.317 trillion ruble oil-fund reserves to protect the budget, some, “but not all,”. The economic crisis is likely to “peak” this year, and tax revenue may slide by 1 trillion rubles, he added. But Elina Ribakova, Chief Economist at Citibank Russia takes a different view:

“They're planning a large fiscal deficit. Kudrin was mentioning six per cent and our estimate is we could reach ten per cent of GDP, which is most of the reserve fund. So under that scenario yes, we could easily run out of money this year. But I hope that by prudent macroeconomic preemptive policies, we'll not allow that to happen.”

Russia's Reserve Fund now stands at 4.7 trillion rubles ($142.5 billion) and the National Wealth Fund at 2.6 trillion rubles ($79 billion). On February 1 2008 the Finance Ministry divided the former Stabilization Fund into the Reserve Fund, which is intended to cushion the federal budget from a plunge in oil prices, and the National Wealth Fund, designed to help Russia carry out pension reforms.

First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov stated that the global financial crisis is expected to last three years, He confirmed the appropriateness of the government’s reserve strategy, noting that the Finance Ministry was under pressure to start using the reserves several months ago. The crisis could be even more severe than was originally thought, he warned. “We are considering a scenario which is already tough enough, but it could get even tougher, with federal and regional budget revenues falling more sharply than we are estimating,” Shuvalov explained.

Unless the oil price recovers soon, Russia's current-account surplus will turn into deficit during 2009 (the Economist Intelligence Unit forecasts that it will equal 4% of GDP), meaning that the country would be forced to subsidise vital imports, including food, out of its already strained dollar holdings. Even if an outright default is likely to be avoided, some debt restructuring moves involving the bulk of Russian debt now seem more or less unavoidable.

As for the outlook for Russian GDP, Kudrin's forecast seems somewhat on the optimistic side, and it is interesting to note that Citgroup have now revised to a 3% contraction in 2009 followed by growth of 1.7% in 2010. They argue (and I agree) that the key change in 2009 GDP is likely to come on the domestic consumption side. Private consumption, which accounts for about 80% of total consumption, now looks set to contract significantly (Citigroup forecast 4.6%), even if the government keeps its originally planned level of current spending.

At the same time investment will also contract (Citigroup suggest by 10%) owing to reduced access to credit and further possible cuts in government capital spending (which accounts for about 10% of total investment growth). The government capital injections (an additional US$40 billion, according to Finance Minister Kudrin, Bloomberg, 22 January) is more liekly to go towards covering bank non performing loan losses rather than supporting new credit.

Even more worryingly Citigroup forecast a 10% contraction in new credit. Furthermore, they argue that the government may well have to cut capital spending owing to the need to accommodate increases in social spending and support for the regional governments. As a result of falling income and investment spending imports will fall (perhaps by 20% in dollar terms), this will be positive for the current account deficit (and to some extent for GDP. A 3% CA defeicit thus seems reasonable assuming no rebound in oil prices.

So, not a rosy picture. Next stop some more real economy data next week, and the manufacturing and services PMIs.