Tatarstan industry no longer growing

A near-zero growth

The industrial production index in Tatarstan amounted to 100.1% in the first 2 months of 2024 compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. At the same time, mining in the republic is falling: the index of industrial production in this area amounted to 95.2%, and manufacturing shows an increase of 102.6%.

Volume of shipments of goods and services in January-February 2024, billion rubles

Tatarstan Statistics Service data

At the beginning of 2024, the production of medicines, wood processing, production of computers, electrical equipment and leather were developing most dynamically.

Top 5 industries of Tatarstan with the highest production growth in January — February 2024

Tatarstanstat

Compared to the first months of 2023, the production of clothing, mining, production of motor vehicles, beverages and petroleum products decreased.

Top 5 industries of Tatarstan with the highest production fall in January — February 2024

Tatarstanstat

Dynamics of production are affected by sanctions, staff shortages and high capacity utilisation

Such a discrepancy, according to the analyst, may be explained by a higher share of the extractive industry and oil production in the industrial structure of Tatarstan than in the Russian industry as a whole.

“The official publication on the dynamics of oil and gas production in Russia has been suspended by the decision of the government, so it can only be judged by indirect data," explains Belenkaya. “But Russia decided to reduce production by 500 thousand barrels per day in April last year, this reduction is valid until the end of this year in coordination with OPEC+. In the second quarter of 2024, Russia, by decision of the government, is further reducing oil production and exports by a total of 471 thousand barrels per day. Besides, gasoline exports have been temporarily banned for six months due to the situation on the Russian fuel market.”

However, in the manufacturing industry, the growth rate in the region at the beginning of this year turned out to be significantly lower than in the country as a whole, Olga Belenkaya emphasises. “Comparing, for example, the February dynamics, it can be noted that in Tatarstan there was a decrease in output compared to the same month last year in those industries where there was growth in Russia as a whole — the production of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers, furniture, clothing, paper production, production of finished metal products," she listed.

The decline in industrial production may be due to high capacity utilisation, a shortage of workers and difficulties in supplying components to car factories due to sanctions and the withdrawal of Western companies, or, for example, competition with the Chinese automotive industry.

According to Rosstat, in Russia in February, industrial production growth accelerated to 8.5% yoy with a consensus forecast of 5.6% yoy, and growth by January, taking into account seasonal and calendar factors, amounted to 1.5% (the Ministry of Energy estimates 1.3%). However, according to some experts, the presence of an additional working day in February (leap year) reduces the accuracy of estimates when clearing seasonality. Previously, from June 2023 to January 2024, the current growth rate of industrial production, adjusted for seasonality, stagnated.

According to Belenkaya, the main contribution to the “abnormal” growth of industrial production in Russia in February was made by the machine-building and metallurgical complex, in particular the production of finished metal products (+51.5% yoy); the production of computers, electronic and optical products (+47.2% yoy); the production of other vehicles and equipment (+38.6% yoy); production of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers (+37.9% yoy).

“Such an outstripping dynamics of production in industries often associated with the state defense order is quite correlated with a sharp acceleration in budget spending growth in February, which the Ministry of Finance explained by advance financing of contracts, as at the beginning of last year," Belenkaya noted.

Industrial production in Russia will also begin to slow down

“Mining plays a significant role in the structure of Tatarstan's industry, the negative dynamics of which is reflected in the general slowdown in the industrial production index for January-February 2024," said Vladislav Bukharsky, Associate Director for Corporate and Sovereign Ratings at Expert RA agency. “It is too early to talk about any trend of slowing down in terms of production in the first months, this industry is quite volatile and depends on the macroeconomic environment (since the beginning of the year, a trend towards rising oil prices has been visible).”

The positive dynamics of industry in the region is supported by manufacturing industries, including in Januar-February, the greatest downtime was observed in the production of vehicles and equipment (11.5 times compared to January-February 2023), the production of medical devices (2.8 times). Positive dynamics is also observed in a number of basic industries, which together blocked the reduction in the production of coke and petroleum products, as well as metallurgy, Bukharsky noted.

As for Russia, the industrial production index amounted to 106.6% in January-February 2024, while a year earlier there was a decrease in production (in January-February 2023, the index was 97.5%). Therefore, in Russia as a whole, there is no need to talk about a slowdown in industrial production.

At the same time, the analyst warns that industrial production in Russia will continue to develop in conditions of personnel shortage and high capacity utilisation, which as a result will not allow it to gain higher rates of development (compared with the current dynamics in the first months of the year) by the end of the first half of 2024. A slowdown also awaits the industry of Russia.