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The Regions This Week
May 19, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 8
Eastern Europe
Some 20,000 to 60,000 Muscovites protested against housing demolitions in Moscow in a pro- gramme initiated by the Mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, to demolish Soviet-era homes. The turnout was much higher than anticipated.
Ukraine’s State Property Fund (SPF) initiated
a court hearing aimed at cancelling the 2011 sale-purchase agreement of a 92.8% stake
of Ukrtelecom, the country's largest fixed line operator, which is owned by the SCM holding of oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. The SPF is also seeking to charge a UAH2.17bn (€74mn) penalty, though without specifying the prospective payer of this penalty.
Net capital outflows from Russia in January- April accelerated to $21bn, more than double the $10bn seen for the same period of last year, according to a report by the Central Bank of Rus- sia. The bank also noted that first-quarter data suggests that the structure of capital flows “is not bad”, with the corporate sector starting to bor- row from global markets again, increasing foreign corporate debt by $3bn, Alfa estimates.
Russia’s GDP expanded by 0.5% y/y in the first quarter of 2017. This made it the second con- secutive quarter of economic expansion following 0.3% growth seen in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Russia’s federal budget deficit widened to RUB 512bn in April, or 1.9% of GDP. Revenues for the period totalled RUB 4.8tn, with oil and gas rev- enues at RUB 2.0tn and non-oil and gas revenues totalling RUB 2.8tn. Expenditures were at RUB 5.3bn. The deficit was RUB290bn in April and the cumulative deficit stood at RUB512bn (1.9% GDP) for the first four months of the year.
A quarter (23%) of Belarusian companies oper- ated at loss in the January-March period. As many as 1,672 companies (both private and state- owned firms, excluding small-sized enterprises) operated at a loss in the first quarter, compared
with 26.5% in the same period of 2016.
The GDP of Belarus increased by 0.5% y/y in January-April following 0.3% growth in the first quarter and a 1% y/y decline in January-February. The former Soviet republic's GDP fell 2.6% y/y in 2016,
Gazprom’s profit is mostly “on paper”, President Vladimir Putin said, suggesting the Russia state gas firm will pay a lot less than the mandatory 50% of IFRS income. The energy company has previously asked for exceptions on the grounds that it has such a large investment programme.
Yandex said it is looking to buy back 20% of
its equity. Yandex plans to repurchase Class
A shares, amounting to 20% of its equity. The buyback is subject to approval by shareholders at the AGM on May 25. The company previously announced it would consider distributing cash. Yandex had some $1.1bn of cash and short-term investments on its balance sheet as of March 31.
The former CEO of Russia’s Vneshprombank Larisa Markus was sentenced to nine years
in jail by a Moscow court for extracting about RUB113.5bn (€1.83bn), in what has become
the biggest case of banking fraud in the country.
S&P Global Ratings believes that Ukraine’s large external debt repayments due in 2019 coupled with potential contingent liabilities, especially stemming from the state-owned gas monopoly Naftogaz vs Russia's giant Gazprom arbitration, are “a risk to timely debt service” by Ukraine.
The vacancy rates of retail premises in the main shopping corridors in Moscow declined by 1.2pp q/q in the first quarter of 2017, reaching 8.4%, according to JLL. The vacancy rate declined for the fourth consecutive quarter, reaching the pre- crisis levels of the beginning of 2014. A further improvement in filling retail premises on the central streets in Moscow is likely in the summer months.