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The Regions This Week
May 10, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 8
Eastern Europe
A regional Sukhoj Superjet 100 (SSJ-100) air- liner operated by Russian flag carrier Aeroflot crashed at Moscow Sheremetyevo airport shortly after taking off for a regular flight to Murmansk. Out of 78 people on board, 41 people reportedly did not survive the crash.
Ukraine's high anti-corruption court will start work on September 5, the court's judge decided. In 2018, the nation's main donor, the IMF, backed Ukraine’s revised legislation for an anti-corrup- tion court, which was one of the conditions for unlocking the lender's funding.
The National Bank of Belarus (NBB) kept its key refinancing rate unchanged at 10%, according to the regulator's May statement. In June, the NBB's key refinancing rate was cut from 10.5% to 10%.
Ukraine's international reserves decreased by 0.5% month-on-month to $20.5bn in April fol- lowing a 2.1% m/m growth in March, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said. The result was at- tributed to servicing and repaying FX public and publicly guaranteed debt in in the amount of $881.7mn, including $710.3mn for servicing and repaying FX government domestic loan bonds and $78mn for servicing Eurobonds.
Morgan Stanley confirmed previous reports that it is shutting down its equities, currency, and trading operations in Moscow, becoming the lat- est foreign bank to reduce its presence in Russia.
Russian billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev and his son Said increased their stake in the Kuzbass Fuel Company (KTK) from 2.12% to 18.9%, while their long-term partners acquired another 48% in the company which is one of Russia's largest produc- ers and exporters of thermal coal, RBC business daily reported citing unnamed sources.
Ukraine’s battered state-owned railway monop- oly Ukrzaliznytsia is going to issue a new series
of Eurobonds in the second and third quarters of 2019 with the aim of refinancing its current debts. The company expects that the effect of deregula- tion of the carriage component and the increase in prices for cargo transportation may not be sufficient to repay long-term loans due in 2019 ($300mn), according to its 2018 financial report.
The Russian government adopted a support scheme for bonds issued to finance investment in renewable and environmentally friendly tech- nologies, the so-called "green bonds", as part of the Ecology national project, Kommersant busi- ness daily reported.
Russian steel major Severstal of Alexei Mordashov sold its Balakovo steel fixtures plant in the Saratov region for $215mn to a smaller regional player, Albin ElektroMetallurgichesky Zavod (AEMZ) of the Krasnodar region, the companies said confirming previous reports.
The capacity of the sold plant is 1mn of rolled steel stock annually.
The Russian finance ministry rejected a proposal made by the country's largest air carriers who are asking to be compensated for rising jet fuel costs, RBC daily reported, citing sources close
to the negotiations. The finance ministry report- edly urged the airlines to find internal operational cutbacks instead.
Russian crude production was down 0.6% m/m in April as all Russian oil companies except Gazprom Neft reduced oil production, but gas output rose 3.9% year-on-year. Russian crude output continued to be driven by the production cuts at integrated oil companies under the OPEC+ agreement.
Belarus’ foreign exchange reserves increased by $322.7mn, or 4.5% month-on-month, to $7.6bn
in April following a 2.1% m/m growth in March, the National Bank of Belarus (NBB) said.