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Eastern Europe
March 22, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 20
Russian Railways plan spending $1.1bn on new RZD-City
Russian Railways (RZD) and its subsidiaries plan to move into a consolidated head-quarter complex, or RZD-City to be built by the Rizhsky Train Station in Moscow for about RUB72bn ($1.1bn), Vedomosti daily said on March 20 citing unnamed sources.
The railway monopoly plans to invest at least
10% in the HQs, the rest to be raised from banks and developers. The total area of RZD-City is reportedly planned at 0.45mn square meters, which would make it one of the largest business complexes in the Russian capital and take at least five years to build.
The rationale behind the new office is cutting operational costs, improving internal communica-
tion and IT systems, and renting out the rest of the real estate owned by RZD, a source close to the company told Vedomosti. RZD currently owns
and rents over 50 buildings in Moscow.
In September RZD said it could invest RUB7 trillion to RUB10 trillion ($100bn-$144bn) until 2025 under its long-term development program. In January First Deputy CEO Vadim Mikhailov said RUB1.7 trillion ($25bn) is to be invested in infrastructure until 2024.
Despite expected cost and operating efficiency improvements under the company's new president Oleg Belozerov, earlier reports warned that RZD might still need to rely on government support.
Ukraine expert forecasts second-round run-off between Zelenskiy and Poroshenko
Ukrainian comic and presidential candidate Volo- dymyr Zelenskiy and President Petro Poroshenko will face each other in the second-round run-off of the 2019 presidential election, Zenon Zawada at Kyiv-based brokerage Concorde Capital predicted in a research note on March 20.
"Being neck-and-neck with [ex-PM Yulia] Tymoshenko, Poroshenko has enough access to state resources to ensure he will qualify for the run-off (using sophisticated manipulations, if need be)," he wrote.
That will draw inevitable protests of vote fraud by the Tymoshenko campaign (accusations of which have already begun), which will be organised on a weekly basis. "The protests will continue to ex- tend beyond the runoff scheduled for April 21, but
are unlikely to draw significant public support," Zawada added.
Zelenskiy has maintained a comfortable lead in the presidential race, according to the latest poll released by the Rating Sociological Group on March 19. Among decided voters, 24.9% will cast their ballot for Zelenskiy, compared to 18.8% for Tymoshenko and 17.4% for Poroshenko.
Among decided voters, 49.6% said they won’t vote for Poroshenko under any conditions. In the second-round runoff, Poroshenko would lose to both Zelenskiy (19% vs. 39%) and Tymoshenko (19% vs. 28%). The poll was conducted among 2,500 respondents between March 9 and 15.
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