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The Regions This Week
June 14, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 4
Eastern Europe
Russia is not going to provide new loans to Bela- rus nor discuss possible compensation for Rus- sia’s so-called tax manoeuvre in the oil sector until the two countries agree on a vision for their further "integration", according to Anton Siluanov, Russian first deputy PM and finance minister.
Ukraine's state-owned PrivatBank, nationalised in late 2016, estimates its losses due to the an- nexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 at more than $9bn, according to the bank's deputy board chair- person Halyna Pakhachuk. She told the NV.Business outlet that a lawsuit has been filed in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague regarding assets in Crimea for the amount of over $1bn.
About 400 jets belonging to Russian air carriers, or over half of the total fleet, do
not comply with the new requirements of the prosecutor general and the Rosaviatsia aviation agency, Vedomosti daily reported citing industry and official sources. Reportedly, even before the tragedy in early 2019 Rosaviatsia started
to demand from Russian carriers to certify any changes in construction of foreign-built jets.
Belarus’ foreign exchange reserves increased by $522mn, or 6.9% m/m, to $8.1bn in May fol- lowing a 4.5% m/m growth in April, the National Bank of Belarus said.
Favourable market conditions are leading up to 10 Russian companies to consider issuing Eurobonds by the end of this year, VTB Capital investment bank's head of debt capital markets Andrey Solovyov told Reuters. "The sanctions theme is losing strength, investors expect good yields. And Russia is the country that keeps on offering good yields," Solovyov argued.
Energy major Saudi Aramco is prolonging its bid for a stake in the Arctic LNG-2 plant of Russian gas producer and global liquefied natural gas (LNG) runner-up Novatek, "expecting that the bid
will be accepted", the Minister of Energy of Saudi Arabia Khalid Al-Falih told Tass.
Chinese tech giant Huawei signed a deal with Russian telecoms company MTS to develop a 5G network in Russia over the next year, BBC News reported. The agreement was signed on the sidelines of a meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Inflation pressures in Ukraine have not subsided
despite the central bank’s decision to keep interest rates high, making more cuts in the near term unlikely. Ukraine’s consumer inflation accelerated to 9.6% y/y from 8.8% y/y in April and rose to 0.7% m/m in May after rising 1% m/m in April, driven mostly by prices for food and transportation, according to state statistics service Ukrstat.
The Ukrainian leadership is going to launch a new three to four-year programme with the IMF by late 2019, according to newly appointed deputy head of the presidential administration Oleksiy Honcharuk.
Russian internet services major Yandex asked shareholders to approve a plan to extend the management and staff incentive programme to 20% of capital from 15%, Vedomosti daily reported citing materials prepared for the upcoming AGM. Currently only about 2% of the incentive pro- gramme has not been distributed.
Russian state-controlled integrated telecom major Rostelecom won the state tender to con- nect state institutions to a fibre optic internet in 12 Russian regions, Kommersant daily said citing unnamed sources. Reportedly Rostelecom won the tender with a bid of RUB2.75bn ($43mn) for the work, which is two times less than the starting price of the proposal.