Page 102 - RusRPTMay19

rapidly and today stands at around 4%, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergey Kiriyenko said on April 8.
Russia’s car sharing market grew fivefold in 2018, reaching some RUB7 billon ($110mn), according to Sberbank, a major state-controlled financial institution. Total spending amounted to RUB1bn ($15mn) in January 2019, up 5% from December 2018. In 2018, users spent a monthly average of RUB3,467 ($55), each trip amounting to RUB260 ($4.1). Moscow accounts for 85% of the market. There were 16,000 car sharing vehicles in Moscow by the end of 2018 and 3,800 vehicles in other parts of the country. Blablacar is the market leader. Having developed activities in Ukraine and Russia since 2014, the French unicorn acquired a Mail.Ru Group service last year to consolidate its leadership.
AliExpress opens global access to Russian sellers. Chinese e-commerce giant AliExpress has announced that sellers from Russia will be able to access the company’s global platform to reach buyers across the world. This is big for Russian e-commerce. AliExpress is the third most popular e-commerce site in the world, behind only Amazon and eBay. Receiving access to AliExpress’s global platform, especially as few international sellers are currently permitted, will greatly aid Russian companies seeking to sell goods abroad. The Russian authorities, who are striving to boost annual non-fuel exports to $250bn by 2024, must be very pleased. Until recently, only Chinese sellers have been able to sell their products globally on AliExpress. In November 2018, sellers from Turkey received access to AliExpress’ global platform after Alibaba Group acquired a stake in Trendyol, a Turkish online marketplace. AliExpress does not sell goods within China. Alibaba’s platform Tmall is used domestically instead. AliExpress has started testing access for Russian sellers. The Russian company must first register on Tmall, after, which the seller can choose to place his products on the global AliExpress. BMB
E-wallet inactivity fee offered to stay, but with stricter rules. The e-money association sent a memorandum on inactivity fees for e-wallets for approval to Central Bank. Memorandum states that charging inactivity fees is the right of the e-wallet operator, but sets unified rules: caps daily charge at RUB10/day, allows operators to start charging after a year of inactivity, and requires more explicit alerts to the user. Qiwi currently charges RUB10/day after 180 days of inactivity. The memorandum is a result of joint efforts of the association and Central Bank, according to the latter's representative. Qiwi supports the memorandum. As a reminder, the idea to limit or ban inactivity fees was discussed by the government early this year. If memorandum is approved, Qiwi will largely keep revenue from inactivity fees, but there may be some skew of revenue to later periods. The decision is a compromise.
102 RUSSIA Country Report May 2019 www.intellinews.com