Statistics of macroeconomic indicators in Russia for 6 months (October-December of 2015 and January-March of 2016) confirms opinion of experts that the peak of crisis passed in 2015 and economic growth is renewed (look at table 1). Positive tendencies in 2016 are noticed in agriculture, railway transportation, charged services to citizens, partly in retail trade. Indexes of consumer prices and manufacturers prices of industrial goods showed stable dynamics to decrease. Along with that, economic problems affected the indicators of employment – number of unemployed keeps growing. 

Note: 1) data on January-February of 2015 

Inspite of positive tendencies, there are grounds to believe that economic recovery will be delayed. It is caused by the following factors: low oil prices, weak national currency, high inflation and interest rate, deficit of investment, longtime realization of import substitution program, low purchasing ability and others. It should be noted that among mentioned factors there are system imbalances that includes dependency on oil prices, sensitiveness to speculative capital flows and inefficiency of basic economic policy tools.

The Russian rating agency ACRA, taking into account current economic situation, has released their first macroforecast that covers the period from 2016 to 2020. In 2016 the agency forecasts oil price 39 USD per barrel at average, decrease in GDP - 1,8%, investment decrease - to 5,2%, rouble flactuation at 68-71 RUB./$, inflation in the amount of 7,2%. According to ACRA, the industrial production growth will start not until 2017 and will not exceed 1% per year.

Information agency Credinform offers the ranking of Russian enterprises – manufacturers of alcoholic beverages and ethyl alcohol. The companies with the highest volume of revenue were selected for the ranking according to the data from the Statistical Register for the latest available period (for the year 2014). These enterprises were ranked by decrease in product profitability ratio (Table 1).

Product profitability is calculated as the relation of sales profit to expenses from ordinary activities. Totally the profitability reflects the economic efficiency of production, and product profitability ratio allows us to make a conclusion to understand whether output of one or another product is reasonable. There are no specified values prescribed for indicators of this group, because they vary strongly depending on the industry.

ABRAU-DYURSO NJSC takes the first place of the ranking with the value of production profitability 66,13%. High result, at times exceeding the industry average indicator of 8,21%, testifies to the lowest production costs in the industry. However, in comparison with its competitors, this enterprise shows relatively modest results in terms of net profit. 

The leader of the industry on the volume of revenue for 2014 - TRADITSII KACHESTVA - is on the next-to-last place of the TOP-10 with the indicator value 5,59%, that is below the average industry level. At the same time, the enterprise reduced the volume of revenue by 8% compared to the previous period.

All TOP-10 companies got the highest and high solvency index Globas-i®, that points to their ability to pay off their debts in time and fully.

Picture 1. Revenue and product profitability of enterprises – manufacturers of alcoholic beverages and ethyl alcohol (TOP-10)

Totally the companies of the industry operate profitably, but demonstrate a decrease in the industry average indicator of product profitability from 16,91% in 2009 up to 8,21% in 2014. Five companies from the TOP-10 showed a decrease in sales result in 2014, and the revenue of the largest 100 companies of the industry in total has decreased by 3% in 2014 compared to the previous period and amounted to 117,5 bln RUB.

A decrease in physical volumes of production of alcoholic drinks and alcoholic beverages, except for spirit manufacture, is testified also by the data of Rosstat for 2010 - 2015 years. (Picture 2 and Table 2).

The industry of production of alcoholic beverages is characterized by a high concentration of wine producers in the southern regions of Russia, i.e. closer to sources of raw materials. This is evidenced by the statistics of the Information and analytical system Globas-i® about the number of companies of the industry registered in regions, having financial statements for 2014 in the statistical register (TOP-10 regions):

Moreover, it should be noted that the main enterprises for the production of strong alcoholic beverages are concentrated in large industrial centers of the country.