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The Regions This Week
May 17, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Eastern Europe
Russia's finance ministry continues to place large amounts of OFZ federal treasury bonds amid high demand, selling RUB135bn ($2.1bn) worth of bonds in three placements against
a demand of RUB239bn. As reported by bne IntelliNews, since the beginning of 2019 appetite for OFZs has returned.
Reportedly, major trading houses Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura are struggling to find buyers for at least 10 crude tankers with 1mn tonnes of Rus- sian crude that also has been tainted with organic chloride. The sellers of the oil reportedly include such major oil companies as Rosneft, Russneft, Surgutneftegas, and Kazakh firms.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said it could nationalise PrivatBank a second time if a court ruled to annul a 2016 decision to take Ukraine's largest lender into state ownership, a top central bank official told Reuters. First deputy central bank governor Kateryna Rozhkova's determina- tion to keep PrivatBank in state hands for now may reassure foreign creditors and investors, who worry that legal wrangling over PrivatBank threat- ens Ukraine's financial stability.
Most Russians (85%) are happy with their job,
according to the state owned pollster, the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM), TASS reported. Two-thirds of those polled (68%) also think that their salary "will not grow, most prob- ably" if they work longer and more productively.
The deteriorating investment climate which followed Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea is causing losses of at least $30bn every year, economist Sergei Guriev said in
an interview.
Two US senators plan to introduce a bill target- ing Russian gas major Gazprom’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany, Bloomberg reported cit- ing sources familiar with the plans. Now more
troubles could be in sight for the project from the US, as Ted Cruz and Jeanne Shaheen, both mem- bers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reportedly drafted a bill that would target vessels that lay the pipeline and would deny visas to ex- ecutives from companies linked to those vessels.
The Ukrainian government expanded a list of goods prohibited for imports from Russia by adding fertilisers, agricultural products and ve- hicles. The Ukrainian government also introduced special duties on a number of Russian goods, Prime Minister Vladimir Groisman said.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and De- velopment (EBRD) revised downward its fore- cast for the growth of Belarus' real GDP in 2019 to 2% year-on-year from 2.5% y/y. The multina- tional lender also forecasts GDP growth of 1.8% y/y in 2020, Interfax reported.
State rail monopoly Russian Railways (RZD) is preparing to issue euro-denominated "green bonds", making it the first blue chip issuer to use the instrument, Vedomosti daily reported citing the investor prospectus for the placement.
The average wage in Ukraine should reach $620 in dollar terms or around UAH16,300, by 2021, the nation's Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said. According to official data, the average nomi- nal wage of full-time employees in March rose by 8.6% month-on-month (22.1% year-on-year) to UAH10,237.
Russian steel group and major pipe mak-
er TMK postponed plans to SPO a 59.4% stake
in its Romanian subsidiary TMK Artrom on the Bucharest bourse, Reuters reported citing an announcement by TMK Artom. After cashing in with the sale of 100% of its US subsidiary IPSCO Tubulars for $1.2bn, TMK said it will be spending €62.3mn from the sale in TMK Artom to subscribe to new shares in the same subsidiary.