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Eastern Europe
April 27, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 18
using proxy rebel forces. That was made abundant- ly clear in the recent missile strikes against chemi- cal weapons facilities, where the western allies the US, France and the UK went hard on the rhetoric in the run up to the strike but then watered the action down by warning the Russians days in advance and limiting themselves to three targets that Russia claims have been decommissioned. In the end it was a largely symbolic action.
Moreover, Russia has called the US bluff on Syria as the war was started seven years ago by a CIA covert action together with Saudi special forces
Russia could gain 1% of GDP from hosting most expensive World Cup ever
bne IntelliNews
The Russian economy could gain 0.2% annually, or 1% of GDP over 2013-2018, or RUB820bn ($13.3bn) from preparing and hosting the FIFA World Cup 2018, Vedomosti daily said on April 25 citing a report by McKinsey.
Russia spent RUB1.2 trillion ($19.4bn) on World Cup preparations, according to McKinsey, mak- ing it one of the most expensive tournaments ever. And this is a lot more than the previous es- timates of $11.5bn-$13.2bn total costs, making the tournament by far the most expensive World Cup after the $6bn and $11bn spent in South Africa in 2010 and Brazil in 2014, respectively.
However, the costs are part of a wider brief of regional development investments as the Kremlin has a policy of using these large showcase events
that tried to overthrow Assad and ended in failure.
Nevertheless, European politicians are aware that they need to engage in Russia and that
their economies are already much more closely integrated with Russia than they would like to admit. When fresh sanctions were imposed on Russian top businesses on April 6, Europe called on the White House for restraint.
The two-day meeting in Toronto is to prepare for a full G7 leaders’ summit in Charlevoix, Quebec on June 7-8.
World Cup and investments to add 1% to Russia's GDP
as a template to force regional governments to make badly needed investments into infrastructure that have long-term economic benefits. Follow- ing the circa $50bn invested into the Sochi win-
ter Olympics the region has flourished and Sochi transformed into a thriving local economic hub.
The infrastructure built for the World Cup and increased tourist flow could add an additional RUB80bn-110bn annually, on top of RUB120bn- 180bn annual investment, mainly in sport and transport infrastructure.
Alfa Bank's chief economist Natalia Orlova on April 25 said that McKinsey's estimates "is in line with our initial estimates, at end-2017; however, since then, a number of factors have changed for the worst."