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The Regions This Week
September 29, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Eastern Europe
Russians protested against the Kremlin’s military intervention in Ukraine on August 24 in St Petersburg. A smallish crowd of 200-400 people dressed in yellow and blue, the colours of the Ukrainian flag, chanted Ukrainian national slogans. Two people were arrested.
Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, refused to pass the pension reform package
in its second reading on September 22, the last parliamentary session day this month. The bill is one of several demanded by the IMF.
A court in Kyiv has fined former Georgian president and ex-governor of the Odesa region Mikheil Saakashvili UAH3400 (around €110) for crossing the state border of Ukraine illegally.
Reporters Without Borders joined Ukrainian civil society in condemning plans to halve Ukraine’s state funding for public broadcaster, the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine in the 2018 budget. "This is not only illegal but also jeopardises one of Ukraine’s great achievements of the past few years,” RSF said.
Ukraine hopes to earn UAH22.5bn
($852mn) from its privatisation programme in 2018, according to the draft bill on the national budget of Ukraine for the next year. In 2017, Kyiv earned UAH3.244bn ($123mn) from privatisation.
Ukraine's industrial production grew by 1.2% y/y in August after a 2.6% y/y drop in the month before, driven by chemicals, machinery and metals, the State Statistics Service reported
on Sept 21. For the first eight months of 2017, production fell 0.4% y/y.
Russia's federal government is scrapping the crediting programme for Russian regions that was launched 10 years ago, according to the 2018-2020 federal budget draft.
Russia moved up five places to 38th among the
138 countries surveyed in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report published on September 26. It only gained two places the year before.
Fitch Ratings revised the outlook on Russia's long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to Positive from Stable, while affirming the rating at 'BBB-', the agency said on September 22. Fitch is the only agency to rate Russia as “investment grade.”
Trade turnover between Belarus and Kazakhstan is on course to triple and hit $1bn by 2020 as the two members of the Eurasia Economic Union (EEU) deepen their cooperation.
Russia's largest bank, state-run lender Sberbank plans to leave the market of several European countries due to sanctions slapped on the lender by the European Union over Ukraine and Crimea, German Gref, Sberbank CEO said.
Russian footwear producer and retailer Obuv Rossii could offer up to 40% in an IPO on the Moscow Exchange in October. The funds raised will be used to expand the retail chain, develop distribution channels, and for other general corporate purposes.
Fitch Ratings estimated that Russia could save up to RUB500bn ($8.6bn) on letting failed banks go bust instead of bailing them out, the agency said.
Credit Bank of Moscow (CBOM) perpetual bonds tanked as fears that another so called Garden Ring Bank could go to the wall continue to dog the market. The value of the costly bonds fell to 74% of their face value from 95% of face value in August.
The Ukrainian banking system made UAH3.429bn (€390mn) of net profit in January-August, accord- ing to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).