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The Regions This Week
July 28, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Eastern Europe
Germany’s federal grid regulator froze plans related to development work on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline worth €4.5bn due to the pro- ject’s "instability." The pipe, that allows Russia to bypass the Ukraine route, has become a political hot potato.
The State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF) re-launched the country’s privatisation programme, listing shares in eight electricity supply and generating companies. However, analysts say it is very unlikely that more than one of the power plants will find a buyer.
Russian electronic appliances retailer M.Video will hold an SPO of 24.66% of its shares on Mos- cow Exchange, to be sold by the Lagranolia Hold- ings affiliated with Safmar group ofbnaire Mikhail Gutseriev, the retailer said on July 27.
Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash faces a new court filing over bribe money that was alleg- edly earmarked for individuals in the US. Firtash is currently confined to Vienna amid corruption investigations against him by the United States and already wanted in the US for allegedly bribing Indian officials to secure mining licences.
Russia has met the production cut target agreed with Opec in May and produced 300,000 fewer barrels of oil than in October, just after the agree- ment was signed, according to Energy Minister Alexander Novak, reports TASS.
Ukraine’s industrial production continues to rise steadily, and was up 3.8% year-on-year in June from 1.2% in May. The gain shows that industrial activity is picking up after only a 0.4% in the first half of this year, according to Ukraine’s state sta- tistics office. However, the big blow is agricultural production was down and has been sliding this year, due to the bad weather in May.
Russia's finance ministry said it will invest re- sources from the €73bn National Welfare Fund
(NWF) more actively, Vedomosti reported on July 26. According to the daily, the ministry will direct RUB290bn (€4.1bn) of NWF funds to the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) is
on a roll. The RDIF has raised $30bn from foreign sovereign funds and sees the potential to increase this amount, General Director Kirill Dmitriev. The fund has co-invested more than RUB1 trillion ($16.6bn) in various Russian companies, invest- ing a total of RUB100bn with another RUB900bn invested by its partners.
Belarus can cover its external debt obligations through to 2018. It will spend $3.7bn in 2018
vs $3.4bn this year, according to the Belarusian Finance Ministry. The foreign reserves of Bela- rus increased by $1.322bn, or 25.2% month-on- month to $6.561bn in June following placement $1.4bn worth of dual-tranche US-dollar-denomi- nated Eurobonds.
Airline passenger traffic in Russia is back to pre-crisis levels after it increased by 20.2% year- on-year in June to total 10.4mn passengers, the Federal Air Transport Agency Rosaviatsia said on July 24. In January-June overall passenger turno- ver expanded by 21.5% y/y to 46.2mn people.
Independent gas producer Novatek is thinking about accelerating the launches of all three trains of the Yamal LNG project in Russia. Pre- viously the company planned to launch three 5.5mmt trains sequentially in 2017, 2018, and 2019, but now it intends to launch the second train three months earlier than planned, and the third train six-to-nine months earlier.
Russia supplies 80% of Ukraine’s coal, despite the war in East Ukraine, the Ukrainian energy and coal industry ministry said on July 25. Russia accounted for 1.09mn.