Consumer confidence in Russia remains on the ropes, but business turned in another cautiously optimistic month at -2% for the forth month in a row.

The consumer confidence index grew 1 percentage point on the quarter to minus 16% in January–March, the Federal State Statistics Service said in a statement on Thursday. The share of people who think that recent economic changes are positive fell to 11% in January-March from 12% in October–December 2018, while the share of negative estimates went down to 45% from 46%, and the share of neutral estimates rose to 43% from 42%. The number of people who expect economic improvement in the next 12 months rose to 11% from 10%, while the share of people that see negative dynamics in the Russian economy decreased to 23% from 26%.  

Business confidence, however, has been doing much better with April turning in another month of -2%. There was a wobble last autumn, but since the start of this year business has been cautiously optimistic about how the rest of the year will turn out.

The last time business confidence was actually in the black was in June 2017 and then for only one month.

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