Survey of Current Business (December 2018 – March 2019)

Sergey P. Aukutsionek – Head of Center for Transition Economy Studies, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences, Candidate of Economic Sciences (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Andrey S. Yegorov – Researcher of the Center for Transition Economy Studies, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences, Candidate of Economic Sciences (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tatyana V. Serzhantova – Senior Researcher of the Center for Transition Economy Studies, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Stanislav V. Belyakov - Researcher of the Center for Transition Economy Studies, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In December 2018 the share of enterprises that highly estimated their financial conditions turned out to be surprisingly large: adding 12 percentage points for a month, the share of well-to-do enterprises reached a record high level for all 25 years of measurements of this indicator and amounted to 94%. The diffusion index of output reached 58 points, showing a significant increase of 20 points.

The diffusion index of expected after three months changes in prices for manufactured products is growing three consecutive months and in December 2018 reached 81 points – its highest value since 2015. A similar price index for purchased products stopped at the level of 95 points, which also is a record high value for the last 4 years.

Key words: industry, industrial enterprises, price level, wages, employment, output, investment, indebtedness to banks, order-book level, stocks of finished products, capacity utilization rate, risk of bankruptcy, economic policy, crisis duration.