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The Regions This Week
March 8, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 5
Eastern Europe
Minister of Economy Maxim Oreshkin was booed in the Russian Duma this week during a speech on the 12 national projects. The speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin caused a stir by interrupting and postponing the monthly address by Oreshkin, urging him to "present the concrete steps [of economic development]" rather than the "general overview and analysis of the situation".
The imposition of the sanctions on Russia’s GAZ carmaker was delayed by four months
to July 6, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Treasury Department (USTD) said. By the deadline, US residents would have to divest or transfer debt, equity, or other holdings in GAZ, which belongs to billionaire and Kremlin insider Oleg Deripaska.
Fixed investment growth in Russia in 2018 amounted to 4.3%, according to data released by the statistics agency Rosstat. Nominal invest- ment amounted to RUB17.5 trillion ($266bn). The growth rate of the indicator in 2018 exceeded the official 2.9% forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development almost 1.5-fold. Rosstat also retro- actively revised investment growth for 2017 from 4.4% to 4.8%.
Ukraine's 2M19 state budget revenue rose 12.0% y/y to UAH125bn ($4.6bn), which is 1.0% below plan, the State Treasury provisionally re- ported. In February alone, Ukraine’s state budget revenue surged 24.8% y/y to UAH70.2bn, which is 8.3% y/y above plan. The unusual rise was mostly due to the budget’s special fund revenue from the customs amnesty of vehicles acquired in 2014- 2018 but registered in EU states.
The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) will update its blacklist of bankers by the end of March as the regulator continues its crackdown on banking malfeasance and dodgy clients, as part of its sec- tor clean up.
One of Russia's largest cosmetics, toiletries, and household products retail chains Sangi Style is close to bankruptcy, with creditors claiming over RUB4bn from the company. With over 800 outlets Sangi Style was one of the top three chains in the segment, behind Magnit Cosmetic (3,774 outlets) and L'Etoile (900).
Chinese online retailer AliExpress is to launch sales of cars in Russia teaming up with Chinese carmaker Chery. Chery Avtomobili Rus plans to eventually start assembly of the vehicles in Russia.
Sales of smartphones in Russia dropped by almost a third in February, making the sharpest decline since the 2015 market turbulence. The respondents attributed the decline to the high indebtedness of the consumers, tougher require- ments on consumer loans, and loss of momen- tum after front-loaded purchases in the end of 2018 ahead of the VAT hike.
Belarus sent mixed signals over a possible sale of state-owned Belinvestbank to the EBRD. The Belarusian government is waiting for "a formal proposal" from the EBRD over the possible ac- quisition of a stake in Belinvestbank, the nation's Economy Minister Dmitry Krutoi said following years of negotiations between the multinational lender and the Belarusian authorities.
Russian oil majors lost about RUB55bn ($0.8bn) since the beginning of 2019 by supplying oil prod- ucts and motor fuel to the domestic rather than the foreign market, Vedomosti daily said citing the calculations of Vygon Consulting.
Russian natural gas producer Novatek closed the sale of 10% in its second LNG project Arctic LNG-2 to French energy major Total for $2.5bn. With the help of Total and a consortium of other international energy majors Novatek launched its first major LNG project Yamal in 2017.