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The Regions This Week
November 9, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 8
Eastern Europe
October exports of Russia's gas giant Gazprom to Europe and Turkey declined by 7% due to warm weather in Europe, Reuters estimated. In January-October Gazprom's exports to its largest markets increased by 4.4% to 164bn cubic metres.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko submitted his resignation to parliament after drawing criticism for his alleged mishandling of the investigation into the murder of Kherson activ- ist Kateryna Handziuk. Lutsenko, who is closely aligned with President Poroshenko, defended his record and argued that political enemies were speculating on Handziuk’s death to attack the president and his team.
The IHS Markit Russia Services Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) surged in October to 56.9 from 54.7 a month earlier on the back of improved economic momentum. The services result came
a day after Market reported a return to growth in the manufacturing PMI that went back into the black printing a gain of 51.3 after four months of contraction.
Domestic wellbeing is the key to making Russia great, a poll showed. While Russians still want to see Russia as a "great power”, this should be con- ditioned on the ability of the state to maintain the wellbeing of its citizens, showed a study by the RAN Institute of Sociology cited by Kommersant daily.
Ukraine’s third quarter GDP growth slowed to 3.1% in annual terms, down from 3.8% in the second quarter, reported the National Bank of Ukraine. Low grain prices and rail freight bottle- necks pulled down growth.
Belarus was Russia's fourth biggest trading partner and the biggest in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in January-September, with turnover worth $26.403bn, an increase of
13.9% over the same period in 2017, according to the Russian customs.
Russia's largest coal producer SUEK is considering an IPO and plans to boost its output by 18% or 20mn tonnes by 2020. The potentially headline-making IPO ambitions are still vague, however, as the company said it is interested in both "public debt and public equity", with no specific timing in place.
Investor demand for Russian domestic treasury bills is still weak ahead of the impending US de- cisions on new sanctions. Russia's finance min- istry placed RUB11.2bn of federal OFZ bonds on the weekly auction of November 7 out of RUB20bn proposed in two issues maturing in 2024 and 2029.
Brussels Airlines discontinued the lease of four Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft after tech- nical problems led to delays and cancellations of several flights, Reuters reported citing company representatives.
The US Embassy in Ukraine called upon residents to boycott the local elections in the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in Ukraine scheduled for November 11. The embas- sy said the elections don’t conform either to the Minsk Accords or Ukrainian legislation.
Russia plans to start supplying frozen poultry to China by the end of 2018. The Ministry of Agriculture said the Russian sanitary watchdog and China's customs have agreed on sanitary and veterinary requirements.
Russia's second largest state-owned bank
VTB is getting ready to buy 70% in Zapsikombank, its third acquisition of a regional bank this year. The deal should be closed by the end of the year given all the necessary regulatory approvals, VTB an- nounced without disclosing the value of the deal.