Russian manufacturing contracted at its second-fastest pace last month as companies continued cutting production and jobs amid collapsing demand at home and abroad, VTB Capital said.
VTB’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 34.4 from December’s record low of 33.8, the bank said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The length of the contraction was one month short of the slump that occurred during the 1998 economic collapse, when the government dropped its support of the ruble and defaulted on US$40 billion of domestic debt, the bank said.
A figure above 50 means growth and below 50, a contraction. The bank surveyed 300 purchasing executives.
“Levels of output and domestic and export orders remained very close to their historical lows,” Dmitry Fedotkin, an economist at VTB Capital in Moscow, said in the report. “Employment conditions deteriorated further.”
Russia’s economy will probably contract 0.2 percent this year, the Economy Ministry forecast, as prices for the country’s key commodity exports tumble on slumping global demand. That will contribute to a 40 percent decline in state revenue this year, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Friday, meaning the government would need to rewrite the budget with its first deficit in 10 years.
Unemployment rose in December to 7.7 percent from 6.6 percent the month before.
Prices that manufacturers pay and charge continued a decline that began in November, the report said. Still, the lower cost of oil products and construction material wouldn’t be felt in full because of the ruble’s slide against the US dollar, VTB said.
“There were numerous reports from panelists that the weaker ruble had partially offset the impact of falling global commodity prices, resulting in a slower overall rate of deflation,” the report said.
Bank Rossii expanded its trading range for the ruble 20 times since the middle of November before policy makers switched last week to let “market” forces help determine the exchange rate within a widened limit.
The central bank has drained more than a third of its foreign-currency reserves, the world’s third-largest, since August to stem the ruble’s 34 percent slide against the dollar.
Investors are betting against the ruble as a 69 percent slump in oil prices in the past six months weakens the economy, triggering Russia’s worst financial crisis since 1998. Some US$290 billion has left the country since August, BNP Paribas SA said.
The PMI is derived from indexes that measure changes in output, orders, employment, suppliers’ delivery times and stocks, VTB said.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region