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The Regions This Week
December 14, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 10
Eastern Europe
The European Union has extended sanctions against Russia at the European Council summit, as announced by the European Council President Donald Tusk, who drew attention to "zero pro- gress on realisation of the Minsk agreements."
Ukraine obtained a €500mn macro-financial as- sistance (MFA) tranche from the European Com- mission, the nation's finance ministry said. The loan is repayable in April 2033 and has an interest rate of 1.25%, the ministry said.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak will try to fine-tune the new industrial support mechanism, Vedomosti daily reported citing un- named sources familiar with the meeting Kozak had with car industry representatives. He then at- tempted to overhaul the state support system for the real sector, which has seen a strong pushback from the car manufacturers.
A court in Kyiv overturned January's decision of the Ukrainian government to dismiss “big fish” and former head of the State Fiscal Service (SFS) Roman Nasirov, who was indicted by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) on corruption charges. Ukrainian anti- corruption authorities allege that Nasirov provided restructuring of rent payments for gas produc- tion companies associated with fugitive lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) kept its key policy rate at 18% following its increase by 0.5 percentage points (pp) in September. Annual con- sumer price inflation in Ukraine stood at 10% in November. The acceleration of inflation as com- pared to previous months was anticipated.
German foreign direct investment (FDI) into Russia exceeded €2bn in the first three quar- ters of 2018, according to the head of the Ger- man-Russian Chamber of Commerce Mattias Schepp, as cited by Interfax. This has already
exceeded the €1.6bn of German FDI into Russia in all of 2017.
Pressure against the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline could be building up again, as the Eu- ropean Parliament called for the cancellation of pipeline's construction following the report on the Implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.
Belarus’ foreign exchange reserves increased by $3.326bn, or 4.7% m/m, to $7.440bn in No- vember following a 2.6% m/m increase in October, the National Bank of Belarus (NBB) said. The result was mainly attributed to revenues from export duties on oil and oil products, sales of FX- denominated bonds on the domestic market, and purchase of foreign exchange on the Belarusian Currency and Stock Exchange.
In the nearest future the Pension Fund of Rus- sia (PFR) will have its management reshuffled ahead of a big reform drive aimed at getting the sector working properly, Kommersant daily report- ed. The operation deputy head of the PFR Boris Gukaylo has already been fired from his job.
The EBRD arranged a €50mn syndicated loan for Belarusian state-owned Belinvestbank with the aim of crediting local small businesses. The three-year syndicated loan of up to €50mn con- sists of an 'A Loan' of up to €15mn provided on the bank’s own account and a 'B Loan' of up to €35mn to be provided by several international lenders from Germany, Luxemburg, Portugal, Switzerland and the US, which have shown signifi- cant interest in the transaction.
Antipinsky Oil Refinery, one of the largest inde- pendent refineries in Russia, was shut down due to oil supply shortages, Reuters and Vedomosti re- ported citing unnamed sources. Russia's largest bank Sberbank could throw a RUB23bn lifeline to Antipinsky.