OREANDA-NEWS  In the second half of 2022, the profits of large and medium-sized Russian companies collapsed by 45.4 percent in annual terms. The drop was a record since the first half of 2020, when due to the coronavirus pandemic, enterprises were closed for lockdown. Such calculations were made by experts of the audit and consulting network FinExpertiza, a copy of the study is at the disposal of the editorial office of <url>.

In general, over the past "sanctions" year, enterprises earned 25.93 trillion rubles. The financial result of the business sank by almost 13 percent by 2021, when the profit of companies increased 2.6 times, to 29.66 trillion rubles, amid the economic recovery after the pandemic. Experts emphasize that in 2022 the business "did not receive" 3.7 trillion rubles.

As explained by the head of FinExpertiza Elena Trubnikova, the reasons for the reduction of business profits in 2020 and 2022 are fundamentally different. "In the coronacrisis 2020, the deterioration of financial indicators was directly related to the lockdown and the fall in global demand, and as epidemic restrictions eased and business activity resumed in the autumn, enterprises managed to move to growth. In the first half of 2022, even under the conditions of anti-Russian sanctions, the financial performance of the business was supported by a super-positive price environment in the commodity markets. The cumulative profit indicator was driven up mainly by the oil and gas sector," she said, adding that in the second half of the year, peak growth quickly turned into a downward trend.