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The Regions This Week
November 30, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 8
Eastern Europe
The Russian authorities plan to significantly in- crease fines imposable on tech companies such as search engines, messengers, news aggrega- tors, and others, Reuters reported citing unnamed industry sources. The measure is aimed at forcing foreign and local tech giants to comply with the demands of Russian watchdogs.
The board of directors of the International Mon- etary Fund are due to meet on December 10 when they are likely to sign off on a new IMF deal for Ukraine that should clear the way for the release of another badly needed tranche of funding.
French dairy major Danone is negotiating the acquisition of Russia's largest baby food produc- er Progress, Kommersant daily reported citing unnamed industry sources.
One of the longest shareholder conflicts in Russian corporate history is not over, as the High Court of London allowed the holding companies Interros and Crispian of billionaires Vladimir Potanin and Roman Abramovich to appeal June's decision on the sale of shares
in metals major Norilsk Nickel, according to Interfax.
Belarus decreased imports of petroleum prod- ucts from Russia in September to the lowest monthly level in 2018 — to 106,000 tonnes — amid an ongoing energy and financial conflict, which could badly hit the nation's battered state financ- es. As part of Russia’s belt tightening it has been cutting back on the de facto subsides it grants Belarus in the form of low oil prices and below- market export tariffs this year.
Russian non-oil and gas industrial majors pledged RUB7.3 trillion ($109bn) of investment in 143 projects under a Kremlin-driven push to contribute to infrastructure development, RBC business portal reported. In August presidential aide Andrei Belousov controversially proposed to slap a one-time selective tax on "extra revenues"
of 14 of Russia's largest metals and chemical majors worth up to RUB500bn.
Ukraine’s state and state-guaranteed debt de- clined 0.5% m/m to $74.3bn in October, mostly due to reduced state foreign debt, the finance ministry reported on November 27. State domes- tic debt slid 0.2% m/m to $26.7bn, while foreign debt dropped 0.5% m/m to $37.7bn. State-guar- anteed debt declined 0.9% m/m to $10bn.
The High Court in London concluded that it does not have jurisdiction over Ukraine's claims against former shareholders of its largest lender, PrivatBank, nationalised in late 2016 under suspi- cious circumstances. Despite the judge finding that the bank has been the victim of a massive fraud — between $329mn and $1.2bn — he concluded that the English court does not have jurisdiction over its claims against its former shareholders.
The Russian government will spend RUB10bn ($150mn) on stockpiling aluminium to support the sanctioned major Rusal, Vedomosti daily reported citing a decree signed by Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev. The money has been granted to the state reserve agency Rosreserv, which man- ages Russia’s strategic reserves of products.
Russian's largest producer of turkey meat Da- mate will expand into producing lamb meat in the Stavropol region. There is no large-scale pro- duction of lamb in Russia. Damate plans to invest RUB2bn, part of which is borrowed from Russian Agricultural Bank, to produce up to 15,000 tonnes of lamb meat annually.
Russian central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina announced in a press conference at VTB Capital Russia Calling forum that “if the current situation on the financial markets continues, we think
it will be possible [for Russia’s central bank] to resume the regular purchases of foreign currency after the New Year holidays, from the 15th from January”.