Page 9 - bne_newspaper_February_09_2018

The Regions This Week
February 9, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Eastern Europe
Minister of Economic Development Maxim Oreshkin told the Duma that in 2018 the Russian government would be “more careful” about carrying out large-scale privatisation deals, as there is no pressing need to cover a budget deficit this year. The comments come days after reports from the Central of Strategic Research think- tank and Central Bank of Russia urged the use
of large-scale privatisation as a means to raise revenues for badly needed structural reforms.
Russia’s economic freedom score came in at 58.2, making the economy the 107th freest in the 2018 Economic Freedom Index that is published by the Heritage Foundation. Russia remained in the ‘mostly unfree’ category of countries, although it moved up seven spots compared with the 2017 index.
US-based global provider of enterprise cloud computing Oracle Corporation froze new
deals and the renewal of existing contracts
with Russian oil and gas majors as of January
29, including such companies as Gazprom, Surgutneftegas, Lukoil and Rosneft and their subsidiaries and overseas projects. Oracle notified its Russian clients in the oil and gas sector with the need to comply with new US sanctions.
Russian internet firm Yandex confirmed the closure of its taxi booking service Yandex.Taxi and Uber in Russia and five other countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Kazakhstan), as the two sides press on with creating a new joint venture. In one of the biggest pieces of news in the Russian tech sector in 2017, Yandex.Taxi and Uber announced plans to join forces in a joint venture.
The number of German companies operating on the Russian market declined by 5.2% in 2017 to 4,965, following a 6% decline seen in 2016, according to the data by the German-Russian
Trade Chamber. The negative trend is attributed to Russia’s economic decline in 2015-2016, Western sanctions, and new rules on the registration of foreign representatives and branches of foreign companies.
Russian oligarchs featuring on the ‘Kremlin List’ published by the US Department of the Treasury are facing additional scrutiny over some financial transactions, Bloomberg reported. At least one unnamed participant of the list told Bloomberg that “he’s worried a deal with foreign partners expected to close in the next few months may collapse”.
As Russia reorients its supplies of low sulphur oil from the West to China, the quality of Russia’s Urals blend oil has rapidly declined, which is upsetting European refineries. Predicting a 2% rise in crude exports by Russian companies
next year, Transneft said the sulfur content in
its westbound export flows will reach “a critical level” this year, as the company has no further technological tools to improve the quality of crude flows headed west towards mostly European customers.
Russia’s Duma could pass a law in the first quarter of 2018 allowing offshore capital to be invested in strategic companies, the head of the parliament’s financial markets committee, Anatoly Aksakov, said. Currently, foreign investment in Russia’s largest state-controlled companies needs to be approved by a special governmental commission on foreign investment.
An independent anti-corruption court could start its operations in Ukraine in 2019, Iryna Gerashchenko, first deputy chairwoman of the nation’s parliament, said. The same day as the interview was published, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called on parliament to immediately start consideration of the bill
on the court.