SERGEY TSUKHLO: “NON-PAYMENTS AMIDST THE PANDEMIC REMIND OF 2015”

Sergey Tsukhlo, Head of Business Surveys Department, the Gaidar Institute, commented to “Forbes”, on how lockdown and deterioration of economy resulted in a situation that part of businesses stopped paying their bills.
Sergey Tsukhlo noted: “It can already be stated that the non-payments issue reached the pre-crisis levels. In April 2020, non-payments curbed the output growth at the 25% of Russian enterprises compared to 16% presently and equal to January 2020. Everything settled down”.
“In April 2020, enterprises expected an unprecedented deterioration in their financial and economic situation. However, already in July, the pessimism of those forecasts almost hit previous levels" according to a monthly research by the Business Surveys Department of the Gaidar Institute.
“According to the results of QII, 2020, the overall industry adaptability index constituted 73%. That is, three-quarters of Russian industrial companies estimated their situation as normal. In the previous three quarters, this index constituted 75%.
Economists of the Gaidar Institute concluded: “One of the alarming symptoms was a sharp reduction of the share of companies, i.e. 43% against 57% in Q1 2020, that estimated demand for their production as sufficient. Thus, the early phase of current crisis proved to be more challenging for the industry than the beginning of the previous crisis of 2015–2016”.


Friday, 17.07.2020