Moscow's decision to send its armed forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, resulted in international sanctions against dozens of large companies and entire sectors of Russia's economy, particularly in the financial and energy sectors.
Officials have flagged the drop in corporate profits as a key area of concern for the economy, which contracted by 2.1% last year. Nevertheless, the government plans to levy a one-off, "voluntary" windfall tax on business in light of Russia's widening budget deficit and narrowing current account surplus. Most forecasts for 2023 see the Russian economy growing very slightly, but the International Monetary Fund has said global isolation and lower energy revenues are likely to dampen Russia's growth prospects for years to come.
For the first two months of 2023, corporate profits were
down 19.5% year-on-year to 4.16 trillion roubles, following on
from a 12.6% slump in 2022 as a whole.
($1 = 79.4455 roubles)
(Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya and Alexander Marrow; Editing
by Kevin Liffey)
