Page 40 - bne magazine September 2021_20210901

40 I Central Europe
bne September 2021 Gruevski agreed to resign and left his
post in January 2016.
Hungarian PM Viktor Orban and Gruevski have had a long-standing political friendship. Orban was a regular guest at the electoral rallies of Gruevski's party and expressed strong support for him and his policies. Both have waged campaigns against Hungarian born philanthropist George Soros.
Gruevski's first cousin is Saso Mijalkov, a former chief of the secret police, who is now in detention, after receiving a 12-year prison sentence from
a Skopje court in a high-profile illegal surveillance case "Target-Fortress" in February 2021.
In April, Mijalkov was sentenced to another eight years in prison for illegally purchasing wiretapping equipment in
a case known as "Trezor" ("Vault").
The Skopje criminal court turned down a bail offer for his release of nearly €11mn as guarantees.
Several former ministers from now opposition VMRO-DPMNE and close associates of Gruevski, including ex-transport minister Mile Janakieski and ex-interior minister Gordana Jankulovska, as well as other VMRO- DPMNE officials currently are serving prison sentences due to their involvement in corruption scandals.
issues’ commission of North Macedonia’s parliament decided to take away Gruevski’s MP mandate after he fled the country, due to his unjustified absence from work.
In June 2019, Hungary turned down North Macedonia’s request to extradite Gruevski saying that extradition conditions were not met.
It was reported that Gruevski arrived in Budapest via Albania, Montenegro and Serbia in a car owned by the Hungarian embassy in Tirana. He said at the time that he fled to Hungary after being warned that he would be killed in prison.
Gruevski accused the Social Democrat- led government of political persecution, wanting to put him in prison using undemocratic methods and abusing
the prosecutorial and judicial system in Macedonia.
Gruevski and his party had been
firmly entrenched in power for years when then opposition leader and now PM Zoran Zaev released wiretapped conversations, which revealed corruption among top officials including Gruevski and former ministers.
This sparked a political scandal and mass protests in 2015. Under the EU-mediated Przino Agreement
bne:Tech
Contents
Top stories
Russia’s top retail and tech companies join forces to hunt for innovations in the rest of the world 2 Ukraine-born startups raised more
than half a billion dollars in 2019 4 Russian video streaming platforms
gain speed 5 Cloud services take off in Russia 6 SEMrush to SEO success 8
Leaders 9
Russia’s internet giant Yandex
announces growing and more
diversified revenues in 2019 10 Russian telecom major Rostelecom misses on earnings in 4Q19, cash
flow solid 12
Investment 13
World Bank approves $35mn project
to modernise Kyrgyz tax administration and statistical system 13 Romanian online home decoration
retailer raises €3.5mn in bonds 14 Russian billionaires Abramovich, Gutseriev, said to invest in Telegram
crypto project TON 14 Russian fund Da Vinci Capital gets
€30mn from Germany’s DEG to invest
in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan 15
Fintech & E-commerce 16
Russian e-commerce major
Wildberries to add self-employed
vendor products to offering 16 Russian Dixy retailer to launch online sales with Ozon 17 Valuation of Sistema’s e-commerce
asset Ozon boosted to $1.8bn 17
Telecom 19
Makedonski Telekom’s net profit
up 6% y/y in 2019 19 Romanian telco Digi grows by double
digit rates in 2019 19 Russia could postpone 5G rollout
from 2022 to 2024 20
NIBs 21
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Russia’s top retail and tech companies
join forces to hunt for innovations in
the rest of the world
BAs Russia’s retail and tech sectors consolidate, the leading companies are turned their gaze outwards to hunt for
bne:Tech
new technology and innovation.
See page 2
Ukraine-born startups raised more
than half a billion dollars in 2019
In 2019, the venture capital and private equity funding volume for Ukrainian and Ukrainian-founded tech startups reached $544mn (up from $323mn in 2018 and $265mn in 2017), says AVentures Capital’s latest industry report ”DealBook of Ukraine”,
reports Adrien Henni of Ukraine Digital News. See page 4
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