Page 8 - bne_December 2018_20181207

8 I The Month That Was bne December 2018
Business
Eastern Europe
Asia has overtaken Europe as Russia’s biggest market for oil. Russia's largest oil company Rosneft supplied 43.1mn tonnes of oil to Asia in January-September 2018, beating exports to Europe that amounted to 41mn tonnes. Rosneft supplied 15.7mn tonnes to Asia in the third quarter alone, or half (48%) of its total exports, and 13.1mn tonnes to Europe (40% of total).
Yandex.Taxi online taxi ordering service of Russian internet major Yandex will launch its operations
in Helsinki under the “Yango” (short for Yandex go) brand. The cost of the expansion was not disclosed. This is the first step abroad for Yandex.Taxi after having cemented its leading position on the Russian taxi market.
Russia plans to start supplying frozen poultry to China by the end of 2018, the Ministry of Agriculture said on November 7, claiming that the Russian sanitary watchdog and China's customs have agreed on sanitary and veterinary requirements.
US crude oil production set another all time high after an increase of 0.4mmb/d week over week in the
two week period to November 2 to 11.6mmb/d, the highest level ever, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Crude production in Russia also reached a new production high of 11.36mmb/d in October.
Russia's MobileTelesystems (MTS) mobile operator and its subsidiary MTS Bank will start to issue short- term loans to virtual credit cards to its subscribers. The first such offer in Russia will credit the users on a virtual account not pegged to any actual credit card or online and offline purchases.
Central Europe
German automotive giant Volkswagen plans to build a new plant for its
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Czech Skoda brand outside the Czech Republic due to staffing problems, reported German daily Handelsblatt.
The company named Bulgaria and Turkey as possible locations for the new plant.
Hungarian no-frills airline Wizz Air reduced its H1 profit guidance from €310mn-340mn to €270mn-310mn due to the surge in fuel prices. Higher fuel costs would have an impact of about €80mn on full-year earnings, CEO Jozsef Varadi said.
Hungary’s booming residential property market is set to slow. The number of home building permits issued in Hungary fell 6.2% y/y to 26,655 in the first nine months of 2018, the Central Statistics Office (KSH) said.
Slovakia's electric hybrid flying car premiered in China. AeroMobil's elec- tric hybrid vehicle 4.0 STOL, is on display at the China International Import Export fair in Shanghai.
Southeast Europe
The number of foreign visitors to Turkey will hit a record high of 40mn this year, jumping nearly one-quarter from 32.41mn in 2017, Tourism Minister Mehmet Ersoy said. He added that reservations already booked for 2019 indicated that next year would be far better than this year for Turkish tourism.
Three companies are interested
in investing in troubled Croatian shipbuilder Uljanik, Economy Minis- ter Darko Horvat said. The interested
parties are Italy's Fincantieri, Ukraine's Smartholding and Dutch Damen Group.
Chinese company Norinco Interna- tional started building a wind farm
in Croatia, the government in Zagreb announced. The 156MW wind farm built by Norinco in the city of Senj will consist of 39 4MW turbines, and will cost an estimated €160mn.
Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Novatek started seismic tests in Montenegro as part of their efforts to determine whether they can extract oil, Montene- gro’s Hydrocarbon Directorate said in a statement. The consortium signed
a deal with Montenegro on offshore oil and gas exploration in 2016.
Italy's Calzedonia opened its fifth factory in Serbia located in the north- ern city of Kula. Calzedonia, which produces socks, bathing suits and underwear, already has factories
in the Serbian cities of Subotica, Sombor, Ruma and Apatin.
Eurasia
Russia’s Gazprom will resume gas imports from Turkmenistan in 2019. The Russian gas giant stopped import- ing gas from the Central Asian nation in 2016 after Ashgabat refused to lower prices, leaving China to increase its influence within Turkmenistan as its sole buyer of natural gas.
Poland’s biggest retailer LLP launched in Kazakhstan, opening a Reserved store in the country’s commercial capital Almaty. The move marks the 23rd for- eign market the company has entered.
Uzbekistan set itself the goal of expanding the number of tourists fourfold by 2025. Tashkent wants to attract 9.09mn visitors by 2025 up from the 2.69mn recorded in 2017.