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The Regions This Week
April 5, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Eastern Europe
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the country's main anti-graft body, has fully or partially closed 63 cases related to illegal enrichment of government officials following February's cancellation by the nation's Constitutional Court of the criminal responsibility for such wrongdoings.
The founder and majority shareholder of private Russian airline S7 Natalia Fileva died when her plane crashed in Germany on March 31. One of the richest women in Russia and a well regarded entrepreneur Fileva was worth over $600mn according to the Russian Forbes rich list. The cause of the crash is still unknown.
Ukrainians are becoming less likely to look negatively upon their Russian counterparts according to a poll released in March. Some 77% of Ukrainians said they have a positive attitude toward Russians, while 82% of Russians felt similarly disposed toward Ukrainians. 69% of Ukrainians view president Vladimir Putin as bad or very bad, while 85% of Russians expressed
a negative attitude about Poroshenko’s administration.
Russia’s manufacturing PMI climbed to its highest level since January 2017 registering 52.8 in March, up from almost no change of 50.1 in February, IHS Markit said in a press release.
The external state debt of Belarus totalled $16.1bn as of March 1, down by $200mn or 1.3% from early January, according to the Finance Ministry in Minsk. In January-February, Minsk borrowed $140mn abroad.
Russian meat-maker Cherkizovo Group values itself at RUB89bn-101bn ($1.4bn-1.55bn) ahead of the upcoming SPO, Vedomosti reported on April 3 citing investor presentation of the company. Cherkizovo is one of the largest meat producers in Russia and gearing up to become an uncontested poultry market leader through
a serious of acquisitions that started in 2018.
Russian multi-industry investment conglomer- ate AFK Sistema says it plans to IPO its phar- maceutical asset OBL Pharm (Obolenskoye) that was merged with Binnophafm, without pro- viding the timeline for the initial public offering.
Ukraine’s largest steel producer Metinvest, controlled by oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, is going to squeeze out minority shareholders at its main Ukrainian production asset, Ferrexpo Poltava Mining. As of April 1 Ferrexpo owned 99.12% of Poltava Mining shares, according to news agency Interfax.