CBR does not see drop in Russian industrial output in Jan-Feb as steady trend

MOSCOW. March 31 (Interfax) - Data on economic activity in Russia at the beginning of this year are very noisy, with industrial production growth affected by seasonal, calendar and weather factors, the director of the monetary policy department at the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), Andrei Gangan said.

"The dynamic of economic activity in general at the beginning of this year is distorted by noise to a significant degree, partly by one-off factors, partly by effects related to recording of statistics," Gangan told Interfax after meeting with representatives of Tyumen Region government agencies and businesses.

"We saw substantial growth of industrial production at the end of last year, and now some slowdown or even negative growth rates could simply be related to the effect of the base of the end of last year. In addition, calendar factors, meaning the number of working days and, in fact, weather factors could also have affected the dynamic of industrial production at the beginning of this year, in January-February," Gangan said.

"Last year the winter was warmer than this year and a number of sectors, such as construction and other sectors, showed higher results than now. This simply means redistribution within the year, not some persistent trend toward a significant cooling of economic activity," Gangan said.

The Federal Statistics Service reported earlier that Russian industrial production slumped 0.9% year-on-year in February after falling 0.8% in January, and declined 0.8% year-on-year in the first two months of 2026.

The figures for February were worse than economists expected. The consensus forecast projected growth of 0.9%.