OREANDA-NEWS. The pandemic of the coronavirus infection caused catastrophic damage to Russian business, its total profit (excluding small businesses) in March–May 2020 decreased by 67 % on an annualized basis.

This was announced by the analytical service of the international audit and consulting network FinExpertiza. In the report, such a drop in profits was called the worst for the spring months in the entire history of observations, that is, at least in 16 years. Until now, the worst indicator was registered in 2017, when the profits of Russian companies fell by 28 %.

According to FinExpertiza, the total profit of Russian business in the spring of 2020 amounted to 1.4 trillion roubles (about 19.1 billion US dollars). More than a third of companies suffered a loss of 1.65 trillion roubles, and the rest received a profit of 3.05 trillion roubles. March turned out to be a disastrous period for the business as a whole: the total loss for this month amounted to 277 billion roubles. The previous month that was unprofitable for Russian business as a whole was January 2015, when the reasons for the crisis were the collapse of oil prices and the fall in the rouble exchange rate.