OREANDA-NEWS. December 08, 2009. The rate of decline in Russian GDP continued to moderate in November, although the historic data was revised downward following the release of the 3Q09 GDP preliminary estimate by Rosstat.

The subpar performance in the Russian manufacturing sector, driven by a pronounced decline in export orders, weighed on the composite GDP index, despite the services sector persistently pointing to growth. Inflationary pressures continued to abate as growth subsided in the manufacturing sector and output prices declined in the services sector, suggesting that inflationary expectations remained muted.

On a more positive note, the employment situation in both sectors has recently stabilised with the corresponding sub-index in the services sector coming only just short of registering growth. Furthermore, the services sector future expectations index stayed at a high level, reflecting the optimism of survey respondents towards future activity, in line with expectations of economic growth recovering in 2010.