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The Regions This Week
February 16, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Eastern Europe
The US Administration does not intend to apply restrictions against the Russian sovereign debt and its derivative securities, US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said this week. But he warned that there could be sanctions against those listed on the so-called Kremlin list “in the near future”.
More than 71% of Russians said that they would vote for Vladimir Putin, at the upcoming March presidential elections, if the vote took place next Sunday, according to VTsIOM.
Four out of eight candidates registered in Russia’s presidential elections next month are believed to have misreported their income to election officials including Communist party candidate Pavel Grudinin, socialite Ksenia Sobchak and champagne tycoon Boris Titov.
After years of dithering, German car major BMW has finally decided to build a new full-cycle plant in the Russian region of Kaliningrad, the Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov told the Vedomosti daily on February 15.
The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has proposed creating a cryptocurrency for the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, as well as for the EEU (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia).
Trade between Russia and Germany has increased by 23% in 2017 reaching $50bn, according to the data by the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce (AHK). Russia imported German goods worth €19.7bn marking a 25% increase, while Russian shipments to Germany rose by roughly 21% over the same 12-month period.
Russia’s industrial output performed better than expected in January, rising 2.9% y/y after contracting in both November and December, Rosstat said on February 16.
Russia’s current account posted a surplus of $12.8bn in January 2018 versus $8bn surplus seen for the same month of the last year, the data by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) shows. The main driver for the growth was improved prices for commodities: oil prices accelerated to $69 per barrel in January vs $55 in 2017.
Russia’s inflation has fallen even further below its historical minimum to 0.3% in January 2018 and 2.2% in annual terms, Rosstat reported. The fall in foods prices have been pulling inflation down.
Ukraine’s economic growth fell every quarter
in 2017 to end the year with 1.8% growth in the last quarter, the State Statistics Service reported. The result for the full year was 2.1% growth, down from 2.3% in 2016. The NBU late January raised its forecast for GDP growth in 2018 to 3.4% from 3.2%, while worsening the forecast for 2019 to 2.9% from 3.5%.
Ukraine's forex reserves slid to $18.444bn as of early February 2018, which is 2% less than a month earlier, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said.
Inflation in Ukraine in January 2018 ticked up 1.5% compared to 1% in December of the previous year, the State Statistics Service of Ukraine has reported. Consumer prices also accelerated in January to 14.1% from 12.6% over the same period in the past year.
Belarus' exports of goods and services totalled $36.435bn in 2017, up 21.7% versus 2016,
the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB) reports. Belarus' foreign trade in goods and services totalled $72.807bn, up 21.5% from 2016. However, Belarus merchandise trade deficit increased by 16.4% year-on-year to $2.9bn in 2017.