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By Polina Nikolskaya and Zlata Garasyuta
MOSCOW, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Real wages in Russia rose more than expected in January but real disposable incomes could be lower than official statistics show ahead of a presidential election on March 18, analysts said on Monday.
The oil-dependent economy grew 1.5 percent last year after two years of recession, missing an official forecast of 2 percent growth due to a surprise fall in industrial output in November. But official statistics showed industrial output grew 2.9 percent year on year in January, while real wages increased 6.2 percent. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected that real wages would rise 4.6 percent.
The statistics service also revised its assessment of an increase in real wages in December to 6.2 percent from the 4.6 percent it had reported last month.
"It seems to me that in general the January data says that there is no big problem with consumption. And it rather says that the growth in consumption will remain quite rapid in the coming months," said Natalia Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank.
Real disposable income was unchanged year on year in January, the Rosstat statistics service said, adding that is had not taken into account a one-off payment of 5,000 roubles that every Russian pensioner received a year ago.
Analysts said that if Rosstat included this one-off payment in its methodology, real disposable income would be less optimistic.
"In fact, real disposable income fell in January by 7 percent compared to January of the previous year," Kirill Tremasov, a former economy ministry official and now head of research at Loko-Invest, said in a note.
Vladimir Tikhomirov, an economist at BCS brokerage, said Rosstat may have wanted to present better figures ahead of the election.
"I believe the service corrected the data not only because of pure statistical methodology, but also because real income data is extremely important in the election period. They wanted to avoid uncomfortable questions," he said.
Analysts said last week that the January rise in the industrial output could be short-lived amid ongoing large infrastructure projects such as the Power of Siberia gas pipeline to China and preparations for the 2018 World Cup. Rosstat provided the following data:RUSSIAN WAGES NOMINALJan 18Dec 17 Jan 17
Average wages (roubles)38,40051,197 34,422
Yr/yr percent change +8.5+8.9 +6.0
RUSSIAN WAGES REAL
Yr/yr percent change +6.2+6.2 +1.0
REAL DISPOSABLE INCOME
Yr/yr percent change +0.0-1.4 +1.3
NOTE - For key Russian indicators click here . ($1 = 56.4200 roubles)
(Reporting by Polina Nikolskaya and Zlata Garasyuta; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
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