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The Regions This Week
April 26, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Eastern Europe
Ukraine's President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused the Central Election Commission (CEC) of delaying the official announcement
of the voting results with the aim of preventing snap elections to the nation's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. Zelenskiy is in a rush because if he is inaugurated before May 27 he can dissolve parliament and that would benefit his new party.
Russian steel major Severstal plans to considerably increase the share of its internet sales in Russia and CIS to 60% of total by
2023, Vedomosti daily reported citing the
head of company’s e-commerce unit Victor Romanovsky. Only three years after the launch,
in 2018 Severstal doubled its online sales in the region to about 2.5mn tonnes or about 30% of total sales. The company now plans to double that again by 2030.
The number of Russians that consider themselves to be part of the middle class fell from 60% to half (47%) in 2018, as real incomes stagnate and years of crisis weight on confidence, according to the quarterly “Ivanov Consumer Index” poll conducted by state-owned retail lender Sberbank.
Belarus was forced to reduce the workload of its oil refineries due to poor-quality Russian crude oil supplies, according to the nation's state petrochemical conglomerate Belneftekhim. Minsk followed up by refusing delivery of “low quality” Russian oil. Minsk is turning the screws on Moscow as it seeks compensation for money it will lose from the so-called tax manoeuvre.
Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russian gas major Gazprom, recommended a final dividend for 2018 at RUB30 per share, making 38%
of unadjusted net income or a 9% dividend
yield. While Gazprom Neft lagged behind state oil major Rosneft that has just announced a 50%
of IFRS net profit payout, the final dividend came ahead of expectations of Sberbank CIB and marks another increase in the payout.
Russia’s second-largest bank VTB will pay 15% of net profit for 2018 in dividends, the finance ministry said. The bank will use the rest of net profit to increase its capital. VTB is expected by the ministry to return to dividend payments of 50% of net profit in 2019.
Russian natural gas giant Gazprom redeemed a $2.25bn Eurobond issue placed in 2009. The issue was the biggest Eurobond placement in Gazprom’s history.
The next presidential election in Belarus
will be held in 2020, said the nation's authoritarian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who is almost certain to be re-elected for another six-year term.
Russia’s leading retail group X5 Retail Group posted a strong 15.5% y/y increase in revenues in the first quarter of 2019 on the back of 5% y/y growth in like-for-like sales and 15.1% y/y increase in selling space.
Ukraine's industrial output rose 2.1% y/y in March, after a 1.8% y/y fall in February, due to restored growth in manufacturing and continuing growth in mining, the nation's state statistics service Ukrstat reported. Seasonally adjusted output increased 2.4% m/m. In January-March, industrial output declined 0.9% y/y.
Severgroup, a group of companies controlled by steel magnate Alexey Mordashov, acquired GetLean, a Russian startup providing courses for healthier food and lifestyle, reports East-West Digital News (EWDN). Founded by Yulia Gurbanova in 2016, the young Moscow-based company has a team of 10 people, including three full-time employees.