Output rose an annual 8.4% from 1.9% in December, the Federal Statistics Service said in an e-mailed statement today. That’s double the 4.2% median forecast of 10 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. A property boom in Russia is gathering momentum as the economy expands for a ninth year.
Investment in real estate grew more than 35-fold in the past five years and will continue to expand, said Michael Lange, a founding partner and chairman of Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.‘s Russian office, on February 14.
Manufacturing output surged to an annual 17.3% from 2.7% a month earlier, led by production of concrete, bricks and linoleum and construction equipment such as cranes. The boom is benefiting international companies such as Chicago-based Jones Lang, the world’s second-largest real estate broker.
It’s also helping domestic developers including St. Petersburg-based Mirax Group, which is building Moscow’s Federation Tower that will be the tallest building in Europe. Output of gas, electricity and water fell an annual 10.5%, today’s report showed, after growing 4.3% a month earlier. Mining output grew an annual 4.2%, from 2.6% in December, the report showed.
Russia, the world’s second-biggest oil producer, has benefited from an oil price boom that underpinned economic growth and helped swell its foreign currency reserves from $12 billion in 1998 to a record $309.5 billion. Oil prices reached a record 78.40 a barrel on July 14. Russia’s economy grew 6.7% last year and the trade surplus grew 15% to $164.4 billion. (Bloomberg)
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