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Weekly Lists
January 26, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 26
bne:Credit Moody’s raises Russian
outlook to ‘positive’
Moody's Investors Service upgraded the outlook on Russia's Ba1 long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings to Positive from Stable, the agency said on January 25.
The rating action was driven by two main factors: growing evidence of institutional strength and increased evidence of economic and fiscal resiliency.
Moody's sees institutional strength in how well Russia's macroeco- nomic framework coped with the oil price shock and with the impact of sanctions imposed to date, as well as in the enhancements that have been made to the government's rule-based fiscal framework.
"Russian authorities have forged pragmatic monetary, exchange rate and fiscal policy responses to the recent crisis in the context of collapsing oil prices and the imposition of international financial sanctions," the press release reads.
The agency also sees evidence of resiliency and reduced vulnerability to further external shocks arising from geopolitical tensions or from renewed declines in oil prices.
"Near-term developments have been supportive, with the economy having grown faster, inflation dropping lower and both the public finances and external finances having remained healthier than anticipated, thanks to stronger global and domestic demand," according to Moody's
European Union finance ministers on January 23 decided to remove Mongolia and seven other jurisdictions from the EU’s tax havens blacklist set up in December.
Prior to the move, Mongolian Foreign Minister Damdin Tsogtbaatar had discussed the issue with EU member nations at a ministerial meeting in Vienna of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in December.
The blacklist announced by Brussels on December 5 originally included 17 countries, but has now been cut to nine. Apart from Mongolia, the bloc removed Panama, Barbados, Grenada, South Korea, Macao, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.
Mongolia’s foreign minister said in December that the country had implemented “a series of coordinated measures at all levels of government” in response to the blacklist without revealing any specifics of intended measures.
Mongolia removed from EU money laundering blacklist