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The Regions This Week
April 27, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 8
Eastern Europe
In a surprise move the US Treasury Department relaxed some of the sanctions on Russian alu- minium major Rusal and suggested that it would lift them completely if the company’s owner and Kremlin-insider Oleg Deripaska sold his shares.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko dropped out of the list of the top 10 richest people in Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian magazine Fo- cus. Poroshenko’s total estimated wealth fell to $542mn in 2017 from $589mn a year before.
The IMF's latest World Economic Outlook sees Russian GDP growth slowing next year to 1.5%, which is in line with the IMF's estimate of Russia's long-term growth potential. Russia and South Africa will experience some of the lowest growth in the world this year and next, says the IMF.
Ukraine has already used up six of its duty-free import quotas to the EU, including those for honey, malt and wheat gluten, preserved toma- toes, grape and apple juices, as well as wheat and corn.
Russia's natural gas giant Gazprom could place its next Eurobond issue in British pounds. Re- portedly the company plans to meet investors in the UK in the week starting June 18. Gazprom has already issued a €750mn worth of eight-year Eurobonds in London and CHF750mn (€626mn) worth of five-year Eurobonds this year at record low yields.
Russian internet services major Mail.ru ac- quired 51% of Bit.Games mobile and online games developer. The amount of the deal was not disclosed.
Ukraine’s courts set a dangerous president that impinges on the National Bank of Ukraine’s (NBU’s) independence with a ruling that bans the bank’s deputy governor from working. MP Ihor Lutsenko, a member of Yulia Tymoshenko’s
Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party, brought a case against Yekateryna Rozhkova, the deputy chair of the NBU, last December.
BP is buying a big stake in new oil fields belong- ing to Russian state-owned oil major Rosneft. BP will acquire 49% in HarampurNefteGas from Rosneft, Russia's largest oil company, making it a Russian-British joint venture.
Ukraine Postbank went live after the National Bank of Ukraine issued a license to the country's state-owned post operator Ukrposhta permitting it to transfer funds in the national currency with- out opening accounts.
Agricultural production at Belarusian farms of all types increased by 1.9% y/y to BYN2.5bn ($1.25bn) in January-March, according to the national statistics agency Belstat.
The SBU security service raided the headquar- ters of Ukrainian aerospace engine produc-
er Motor Sich in Kyiv again. According to the law enforcement agency, the company had illegally sold more than half its shares to a Chinese businessman.
Russian largest carmaker Avtovaz posted its first net quarterly net profit since 2012, a IFRS net profit of RUB609mn ($10mn) for the first three months of this year, reversing the RUB2.8bn loss for the same quarter of 2017. The company was the top selling brand in 2017 on the recovering Russian market.
Ukraine’s IT industry grew by 20% in 2017 and
generated $3.6bn in export revenue, Prime Min- ister Volodymyr Groysman announced. Its share in Ukraine’s GDP amounted to about 3.4%. "As of early 2018, the industry employed more than 120,000 developers and engineers. Their number is growing rapidly," Groysman told IT industry representatives in Kyiv.