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The Regions This Week
June 29, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Eastern Europe
Russia's Labour Confederation Union applied for permissions to hold rallies against hiking the retirement age in over 50 regions, and has already been granted permission in four: Kras- noyarsk, Chelyabinsk, Ekaterinburg, and Sos- nogorks.
London-based oligarch Roman Abramovich will have to cut his 24% stake in Russia's main TV channel, the First Channel, after becoming an Israeli citizen this month, according to telecom watchdog Roskomdazor, as foreign citizens may not own more than 20% of media in Russia.
The Council of the European Union finally ap- proved a new €1bn macro-financial assistance programme for Ukraine, despite objections by Hungary. The Hungarian government is locked in a bitter dispute with Kyiv over the education rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine and voted against the EU decision to approve the programme.
The Central Bank of Russia will tighten regula- tion on related party lending in the banking sec- tor, taking on one of the thorniest problems of the Russian banking sector, Vedomosti daily said citing the regulator’s internal regulation drafts.
The Belarusian government expects that the
annual growth of the Belarusian IT, transport, and logistics industries will reach 7%-10%, the nation's First Deputy Economy Minister Dmitry Krutoi said. Minsk also hopes to boost economic growth to "above the world average growth rate", as high as 6%-7% and hit a GDP value of at least $100bn by the end of 2025.
If the parliamentary elections in Ukraine were held in mid-June, eight political forces could pass the 5% electoral barrier and enter the Rada. The party rating is headed by Yulia Ty- moshenko's Batkivschyna Party, which was sup- ported by 17% of respondents.
Foreign investors continued the sell-off of Rus- sian domestic federal OFZ bonds. In April-May RUB230bn worth ($3.6bn) of domestic bonds OFZ were sold by foreign investors, with RUB131bn
in April and RUB97bn in May alone, according to the CBR. The share owned by foreigners declined from 32.3% to 30.5%.
Russian internet major Mail.Ru Group and taxi- aggregator Vezyot concluded a convertible loan agreement in preparation for a new investment round. Mail.Ru Group will have the right to con- vert the loan into ordinary shares of Vezyot.
Ukraine has injected $15.5bn to prop up its state-owned banks since 2008, according to managing director for Eastern Europe and the Caucasus at the EBRD Francis Malige.
Russia's second-largest natural gas produc-
er Novatek signed a memorandum of under- standing with South Korea's Kogas on collabo- ration in developing future LNG projects. Kogas agreed to consider entering the future Arctic LNG-2 project, as well as to participate in the Kamchatka transshipment project.
Minsk-headquartered small bank Paritetbank, which was controlled by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s administrative affairs department, is trying to buy the Ukrainian operations of Russia's Sberbank for a second time, after the recent rejection of its first bid by the National Bank of Ukraine.
Russia's leading retailer X5 Group launched a pilot project to test the “Vyruchai-Kassa” self- service checkout machines with voice assis- tance in Russian, English and Chinese at two of its Pyaterochka format stores in Moscow. Anoth- er 10 stores to be equipped to offer the service by end-2018, the company reports.