Translated material
Balance-mortality
Foreign trade so far helps maintain Russia’s balance of payments
The Central Bank is hurting the balance of payments, and so far the balance is not in Russia’s favor. A small plus in the trade balance - receipts from exports still exceed payments for imports in all types - cannot compensate for the outflow of capital from the capital account. Hopes for import substitution are low - the economy is too dependent on imported goods in almost all market segments. As a result, forecasts for the current year are disappointing: although the trade balance, as the Central Bank expects, will exceed $40 billion, this is clearly not enough to compensate for the “shortfall” in the capital account - according to official forecasts, the “outflow” of capital could amount to 70 to 83 billion dollars.Of course, the beginning of this year in foreign trade could not even be compared with the beginning of 2008. In the first quarter, compared to the same period last year, export receipts fell by 45.4%, Russia purchased 36.2% less imported goods. Moreover, capital “fled” from the country by $29.9 billion, which is 16% more than last year’s figure.
As a result, at the end of the first quarter, a negative difference of $31.1 billion arose in the country’s balance of payments, which so far had to be compensated for by gold and foreign exchange reserves.
“So far, our trade balance is more positive than expected, and this is due to the devaluation,” Elena Matrosova, director of the center for macroeconomic research at BDO Unicon, told Vremya Novostey. - We predict a positive balance (trade balance - Ed . ) of up to $50 billion at the end of the year. But in the second half of the year the situation may worsen - gas prices will be lower, if the euro weakens, then the competitiveness of our other export goods (mechanical engineering, petrochemicals, timber, and to a lesser extent metals) will fall. And due to the expected higher decline in the global economy, there may be a decrease in oil and gas supplies, and export earnings will decrease accordingly.”
The analyst recalls that Russian companies continue to pay off their debts. This will affect capital operations, but the pressure will decrease somewhat due to the restructuring of some debts. “As a result, the current account and capital account may become negative, which will require the consumption of gold and foreign exchange reserves. Moreover, it will be difficult to attract foreign investors and enter the capital markets within a year,” says the expert. “According to our estimates, by the end of the year we can reach the level of gold and foreign exchange reserves of 330-340 billion dollars, compared to 385 billion at the moment,” Ms. Matrosova believes.
The authorities may be tempted to solve the problem of a negative balance of payments through a new devaluation of the national currency. But the expert believes that this is not the best solution: “The devaluation of the ruble really has a positive effect on the trade balance, it allows you to increase the revenue in ruble equivalent of exporters, tax revenues from them and reduce imports. But, on the other hand, it poses a threat of increased inflation due to the high import dependence of the economy (in terms of costs for imported raw materials, materials, components, as well as due to the high share of imported goods in the consumer market), and aggravation of companies’ debt problems. In addition, devaluation additionally deprives foreign portfolio investors of any reason to invest in ruble assets.”
Vladimir Tikhomirov, senior economist at Uralsib Financial Corporation, believes that the option of covering the balance of payments deficit with external loans (as is known, the Russian government has already announced its readiness to re-enter the external borrowing market in 2010 in order to facilitate borrowing by private companies) is not the worst , especially if the market situation improves somewhat, as it is now. “We literally just watched how Gazprom successfully placed a bond issue,” the expert recalls. “I don’t see a big threat of a minus (balance of payments at the end of the year. - Ed. ), we coped well enough with payments in the second half of last year, which were more than any for the current year. And now in the first quarter we have already made a third of all payments,” says Mr. Tikhomirov.
Russian enterprises are making profits again
The profit of Russian enterprises in January-February 2009 was 4.2 billion rubles. exceeded losses, stopping the trend of increasing unprofitability in the fourth quarter of last year, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) reported on Thursday. "In January-February 2009, according to operational data, the balanced financial result (profit minus loss) of organizations, excluding organizations operating in crop production, livestock farming, crop production in combination with livestock farming (mixed agriculture), as well as excluding small businesses , banks, insurance and budgetary organizations, in current prices amounted to plus 4.2 billion rubles, or plus 0.1 billion US dollars,” the statistical service said.
In January-February last year, the balanced financial result for a comparable range of organizations was positive and amounted to 888.7 billion rubles. For the entire 2008, the positive financial result amounted to 3.999 trillion rubles.
At the same time, in the fourth quarter of 2008 the figure was negative and amounted to minus 442.2 billion rubles, in January 2009 the figure was minus 184.4 billion rubles. Russian companies began to suffer losses last fall due to the global financial crisis, falling prices for raw materials and demand for finished products, reduced access to credit resources and the weakening of the ruble.
According to operational data, in the first two months of 2009, 33.5 thousand organizations received a profit in the amount of 733.9 billion rubles, 21 thousand organizations had a loss in the amount of 729.7 billion rubles. The excess of losses over profits is observed in manufacturing industries, companies specializing in real estate transactions, rental and provision of services, in the housing and communal services and R&D sectors. "TIME FOR NEWS"