Page 8 - BNE_magazine_12_2019 dec19

8 I The Month That Was bne December 2019
Business
Eastern Europe
Russian internet major Yandex will expand the geography of its grocery delivery service Yandex.Lavka to outside of Moscow, and eventually to Saint Petersburg and other cities with over 1mn population. Yandex will invest RUB300mn in the expansion.
If humanity completely abandons hydrocarbons in the energy sector
it will “end up in caves”, Russian President Vladimir Putin told delegates at the VTB Russia Calling investment summit on November 20, as he took
at swing at most forms of alternative energy.
Russia is in the global top 3 in terms of fintech services penetration, with 82% of Russians regularly using fintech solutions in 2019, RBC business portal said on November 21 citing the study by EY.
Russia is pumping a record 300mn cubic metres a day of gas across Ukraine to the EU in preparation
for possibly cutting Ukraine off from gas deliveries on January 1, Serhiy Makogon, director of Ukraine’s Gas Transit System, wrote on Facebook on November 20 as cited by UBN.
Venezuela is secretly exporting millions of barrels of oil to Russia’s state oil major Rosneft. The oil is being transported by tankers with 2mn barrels capacity with transponders turned off
to avoid tracking. it is estimated that since 2006 Russia and Rosneft have granted Venezuela $17bn of loans, which is being repaid by PDVSA state
oil company.
Sales of new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) in Russia continued its decline, decreasing
by 5.2% in October 2019, according
to the report by the AEB Automobile Manufacturers Committee overseeing the industry. The car market has been struggling to recover this year.
Central Europe
PPF Group of Czech billionaire Peter Kellner reported net profit growth of 160% year-on-year to CZK14.6bn (€573mn) in 1H19. The Group's total assets increased by 5%, exceeding CZK1.2tn (€47.3bn) in 1H19. Its equity attributable to shareholders amounted to €8.3bn, compared to €7.5bn as of December 31, 2018.
State-controlled Polish power company PGE said it has withdrawn from potential involvement in a coal- fired power plant in Ostroleka. PGE’s decision is a fresh blow to the PLN6bn (€1.4bn) project, supposedly the last coal-fired power plant Poland intends to build.
American hotel chain Hard Rock International started construction work on a new congress hotel in Prague on Letna plain. The opening of the complex is planned for the first half of 2023.
Southeast Europe
Serbia plans to invest €1bn in the
next five-to-seven years to improve
its energy facilities and meet the EU’s environmental safety standards, the Mining and Energy Minister Aleksandar Antic said. The ultimate goal of Serbia is to make all its energy facilities compliant with EU environmental standards.
US District Judge Richard Berman on October 23 ordered Halkbank, Turkey’s second largest government- run lender, to send representation to the November 5 second hearing of ‘The US vs Halkbank’ Iran sanctions evasion case, Reuters reported. The bank failed to send anyone to the first hearing
and was deemed to be a “fugitive” by prosecutors.
Turkish housing sales slipped 2.5% y/y in October to 142,810 houses, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) said. The decline brought to an end
a two-month trend of gains – and that was despite monetary easing of 1,000 bp in the benchmark rate delivered by
the central bank since July. Sales in October were also marginally lower than in September.
Eurasia
Turkish investors will build a new shopping centre worth $30mn in Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan supported by the Kazakh Invest national investment promotion company, Kazakh Invest said. The project will
be greenlit after the expected signing of a memorandum between the Kazakh company and Turkey’s Kayaturk Group.
Poland’s main gas company PGNiG said on November 15 it had notified Russia’s Gazprom that it did not intend to extend their long-term deal on gas supplies when it expires at the end of 2022. Poland has said before
it wants to stop buying gas from Gazprom on a contractual basis after 2022, relying instead on LNG imports and gas deliveries via a new pipeline from Norway.
State-controlled Czech utility CEZ is preparing to kick off the sale process of its Polish assets, looking to finalise the deal in 2021. CEZ has stakes in
the coal-fired thermal power plants in Skawina and Chorzow in southern Poland.
Czech Energy and Industrial Holding (EPH) of Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky in cooperation with
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