Russia’s economic decline eased last quarter from a record slump in the previous three months as oil, gas and metals prices rebounded and stimulus measures helped offset the impact of the global recession, the State Statistics Service said Thursday.
The country’s output shrank 8.9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, after contracting a record 10.9 percent in the previous period, the service said in a preliminary estimate on its web site.
From the second quarter, output grew a nonseasonally adjusted 13.9 percent.
The office didn’t give a breakdown of the figures. “It’s good growth, but it’s caused by the inventory cycle and the recovery of external demand for Russian products, primarily gas and metals,” said Maxim Oreshkin, head of research at