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The Regions This Week
September 7, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Eastern Europe
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko reshuffled the government in August due to the fact that some senior officials “drank a lot”, which is “unacceptable,” he said. "I want to publicly say that heavy drinking is unacceptable," Lukashenko said.
The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) sees “little
if any” reasons to cut the key interest rate of 7.25%, while acknowledging "several factors" that would allow it to bring a possible hike of the rate to the table, the governor of the CBR Elvira Nabi- ullina said on September 5, as cited by Interfax.
Russia's finance ministry would be ready to take emergency measures and buy out its own ruble debt should possible US sanctions proceed to the "nuclear option" and target the country's sovereign borrowings, Deputy Finance Minister Vladimir Kolychev told Bloomberg TV.
Two-time former prime minister and head of
the Batkivshchyna parliamentary faction Yulia Tymoshenko called for Ukraine’s parliament
to dismiss the cabinet if the government decides to raise the price of gas for households, at the IMF’s insistence.
After almost a year of sub-3% growth, Russian consumer prices were back to 3.1% y/y, up from 2.5% y/y for July. VTB Capital (VTBC) said in a note that the acceleration was foremost driven by food (+0.56pp out of the total 0.6pp).
The capitalisation of Russia's second-largest oil company Lukoil rose to RUB4 trillion ($59.1bn) on the Moscow Exchange on August 30, overtaking the RUB3.98 trillion of Russia's largest state-controlled bank Sberbank. Lukoil is behind only Russia's larg- est oil company Rosneft, worth RUB4.8 trillion.
Russian carmakers are preparing to raise prices for new vehicles by an average of 1%-5% this
autumn, Vedomosti daily reported. Analysts have already warned that the planned VAT rate hike will push prices up.
Russian billionaire and senator Suleiman Kerimov is toying with the idea of acquiring a stake in Detsky Mir children's goods retailer controlled by AFK Sistema, the multi- industry investment conglomerate of Vladimir Yevtushenko.
Russia is going to cancel exports of petroleum products to Belarus because the neighbouring country is “economically inexpedient”, Russian Energy Minister Aleksander Novak said. Russia
is supplying Belarus’ two refineries with around 18mn tonnes of crude oil a year to help its neighbour meet domestic needs. Supplies are not subject to export duties as Moscow and Minsk have a joint customs zone, allowing Minsk to re- export the refined products for a profit.
Russia’s book market had a turnover of RUB75bn ($1.1bn) in 2017 and could grow
by 7-8% in 2018 to RUB79bn, and further to RUB83bn in 2019. The online sales of books in 2017 grew by 20% to RUB12.8bn, and could advance by another 18% in 2018.
French household appliances, building materials and DIY chain Leroy Merlin will build the largest logistics centre in Russia’s Moscow Region. The $147mn centre will be the largest in Russia and will supply all Leroy Merlin shops in the country.
As of August 1, Belarus' external debt totalled $16.5bn, down by $179mn or 1.1% from the beginning of the year according to the finance ministry. In January-July 2018, external state borrowings totalled $1,506bn, including $600mn in eurobonds, $515.1mn borrowed from Russia and $302.5mn from Chinese banks.