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Facility (EFF) to an SBA as punishment for foot-dragging on reforms by Porosh- enko, who ardently resisted implement- ing anticorruption reforms in particular.
Honcharuk said the president’s team is planning market-based economic policies that the likes of Poland and Hungary introduced two decades ago, Bloomberg reported.
Besides a farmland market, the president’s team wants to sell large state enterprises, starting with banks. “I want 10 big systemic banks to enter Ukraine,” Honcharuk said. “When
we show changes in the approach to privatization, farmland sales, when we attract a couple of big companies to extract natural resources – all of those examples will give clear signals that the rules have changed,” he said.
“Approving legislation to launch the farmland market now looks likely for
this fall. Organizing and launching the market will be difficult, not likely to occur for at least another year. We are confident that Zelenskiy’s poll ratings will plummet at least 5%, but possibly closer to 10%, once the market is approved in parliament. Between 66% and 77% of Ukrainians oppose its creation, according to polls, despite all the gains they stand to make. They don’t trust state officials
to create such a market in a fair and organized way. If Zelenskiy’s team is able to organize a fair and well-functioning market, the president could eventually recover much of the lost support related to its creation,” Zenon Zawada of Concorde Capital said in a note.
“Approving legislation to create the market will be a critical step in securing
a new IMF loan program. Once a multi- year program is approved, Zelenskiy will have to pursue pro-Western policies in order to continue receiving IMF loan tranches. Any decisions in Russia’s favour, such as cutting a deal on Donbas in exchange for cheaper natural gas, would threaten Ukraine’s ability to draw IMF loan tranches. So we believe Zelenskiy is likely to pursue a pro-Western political course during his presidency, though
a sudden turn towards Russia is possible,” Zawada added.
Russian Zvezda shipyard loses two major icebreaker orders
IntelliNews Pro
The competition to build the atomic icebreaker fleet that will open up Russia’s northern route from Europe to Asia is fierce. Global warming has made taking a shortcut around the top of Russia possible, but the icy water is only navigable for one month a year. Russia already has three nuclear powered icebreakers needed to keep the route open but two shipyards are vying to capture this lucrative business.
Russia's Zvezda shipyard, controlled by state holding company RosNefteGaz, lost an order for two new atomic icebreakers worth RUB100bn ($1.5bn) this month. Zvezda was pipped to the post by the United Shipbuilding Corporation (OSK) as the only other bidder and won the lucrative order, Vedomosti daily reported on August 7 citing an announcement by the Rosatom state atomic energy agency.
The two ships are the fourth and the fifth atomic icebreakers to be build, and are the most expensive non-military vessels to ever be built in Russia. The ships are schedule to be ready by 2024 and 2026, with RUB45bn of the construction costs being financed by the state budget.
Zvezda is controlled by RosNefteGaz, a state holding that also holds the government stake in oil major Rosneft and is headed by Russia’s “Oil Tsar" Igor Sechin, who is also the CEO of Rosneft.
As Russia gears up to develop the Arctic maritime Northern Sea route as well as its burgeoning liquid natural gas (LNG) business that also requires large technically advanced ships for transport, Zvezda has emerged as the largest shipyard in Russia, after RUB202bn of investment and it has been eyeing generous state support.
Sechin has repeatedly used the investment in Zvezda as an excuse to accumulate funds in RosNefteGaz and dodge the Ministry of Finance order that all state-owned enterprises (SOEs) pay out 50% of their profits as dividends.
However, Zvezda is still lagging behind OSK in terms of know-how and technology and could not participate in the tender to build the two atomic icebreakers due to insufficient licensing. OSK has already built the three other atomic icebreakers Arktika, Sibir and Ural that were launched in 2013, 2015, and 2016, respectively.
Sources told Vedomosti that Zvezda is still poised to build Russia's largest $16bn icebreaker, Leader. As reported by bne IntelliNews, the state has also agreed to subsidise the construction of 15 LNG tankers for Novatek gas major at Zvezda.
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