Crops Recover

Agricultural output surged 16.1 percent last year from a 9.7 percent contraction in 2010 after a drought and forest fires ravaged crops. Construction rose 4.8 percent in 2011, up from a 3.2 percent gain the previous year. Natural resources production advanced 1.7 percent, down from 7.1 percent in 2010, and manufacturing growth slowed to 6.1 percent from 8.3 percent, the service said in the statement.

“Industrial production is in large part tied to trends on export markets and demand for the goods Russia exports,” Vladimir Osakovskiy, chief economist at Bank of America Merill Lynch in Moscow, said yesterday by phone. “The slowing world economy, including Europe, certainly has a negative effect on industrial output.”

Exports of raw materials such as energy and metals account for more than a quarter of Russian GDP, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who earlier had estimated last year’s growth at 4.2 percent, wrote in an article published yesterday in the Vedomosti newspaper.