Page 6 - bne_newspaper_June_21_2019

The Regions This Week
June 21, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Eastern Europe
The European Union extended economic sanc- tions on Russia for another six months effective from July 31, an EU spokesman said. President Vladimir Putin said during his annual phone-in that Western sanctions have cost Russia $50bn but cost the EU $240bn in “lost opportunities.”
Former Georgian President and ex-Odesa governor Mikheil Saakashvili will run for a seat in Ukraine’s parliamentary election and has announced his top-five MP candidates for his Movement of New Forces political party. Candidates to the Rada should have been living in Ukraine for at least five years and Saakashvili doesn't meet this condition.
Russia raised $2.5bn selling dollar-denominated Eurobonds maturing in 2029 and 2035, the finance ministry said. The sale of Eurobonds maturing in 2029 with a yield of 3.95% raised $1.5bn while the 2035 Eurobond, with a yield of 4.3%, raised $1bn, the ministry said in a statement. The initial bench- mark yield on the 2029 Eurobonds was around 4% and about 4.45% for the 2035 Eurobonds.
Fitch Ratings downgraded Russia's GDP growth forecast for 2019 from 1.5% to 1.2%, following the unexpectedly weak economic performance in the first quarter.
Russian gas major Gazprom sees no risks of losing market share in Europe to LNG supplies from the US, the deputy head of the company's board Elena Burmistrova told the press, as cited by Reuters.
Troubled Russian carrier UTair warned its credi- tors that it will not be able to fully repay the interest on loans worth RUB109.2bn ($1.7bn), Vedomosti daily reported. Previously in April unconfirmed reports claimed that UTair is seek- ing to postpone its bond repayment by 35 years,
in addition to previous attempts to restructure RUB31.4bn ($488mn) worth of banking loans.
Ukraine's battered farming holding Mriya and Continental Farmers Group (CFG) completed the
merging of their businesses and will now work under a single brand, Continental, cultivating land in five regions of Western Ukraine. Mriya defaulted on its $1.2bn debts in 2014.
Russian internet major Mail.ru launched its own voice assistant called Marusya in test mode. Reportedly, Marusya's functionality is currently limited to information queries and launching mu- sic from Mail.ru's social network Vkontakte.
Ukraine’s goods trade posted a $609mn deficit in April, decreasing from $645mn in March, the nation's state statistics service Ukrstat said in its preliminary report on June 14.
Russia's second-largest oil producer independ- ent Lukoil is considering launching LNG projects in Congo and Cameroon, as well as other overseas territories, the head of the company Vagit Alekper- ov said at the annual shareholder meeting.
Russia may lose its title of the world’s biggest grain exporter to Ukraine this year. Agricultural forecasting agencies IKAR and SovEkon down- graded Russia’s wheat export outlooks due to par- tial droughts for the 2019-2020 marketing season that kicks off on July 1, Reuters reported.
Russia's federal budget posted a surplus of RUB1.1 trillion ($17bn) in January-May, according to data from the finance ministry. The surplus is more than half of this year's target surplus of RUB1.9 trillion or 1.7% of GDP in the budget for the full year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is going to restart the Normandy format peace talks between Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France. "We agreed on the importance of updating cooperation within the Normandy format. Our foreign policy advisers will meet in the near future and prepare the next meeting of the leaders. This is a key issue," Zelenskiy told journalists following a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.