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The Regions This Week
March 9, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Eastern Europe
More Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the recently launched Yamal LNG plant will be delivered to UK this week amid poor weather conditions caused by Storm Emma, according to the Financial Times citing unnamed sources. Despite political hostility, at least two tankers of LNG from Russian independent producer No- vatek already ended up in the UK and the US from the spot market, according to previous reports.
Ukraine police tore down a protest tent city at parliament, drawing criticism on March 4. Hun- dreds of armed police officers were dispatched in the early morning of March 3 to tear down the tent city that had been pitched in October on the street in front of Ukraine’s parliament building.
The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) expects 1.5- 1.8% y/y GDP growth in the first quarter of 2018, with 1.5-2.0% y/y growth for the full year. The main driver is expected to be consumption growth supported by continuing salary and retail lending growth.
The supervisory board of Moscow Ex-
change (Moex) recommended paying RUB18.1bn ($317mn) in dividends for 2017, making 89% of net profit for last year, according to the announcement by the bourse. Moex re- ported net profit of RUB4.8bn ($84.5mn) for the fourth quarter of 2018, beating consensus ex- pectations by 5% on the back of higher fees and commission income.
Russia's Finance Ministry opened the subscrip- tion book for exchange of $4bn worth of Russia 2030 sovereign Eurobonds, the ministry said on March 7. The bonds will be exchanged for Russia 2027 and Russia 2047 bonds, and new bonds the ministry plans to issue later this year.
Russia’s Services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) continues to outperform, rising to 56.5 in February from 55.1 in January, IHS Markit said in
a report on March 5. Because of increased output requirements, service sector firms expanded their workforces at the fastest rate since December 2012. Business confidence remained robust, with the degree of optimism the second highest since July 2011 in the period.
Banking assets of Russia's largest oil company Rosneft that include Russian Bank of Regional Development (VBRR) and bailed "church" bank Peresvet have breached the capital adequacy ratios as of end of 2017, Vedomosti daily reported on March 5 citing the IFRS reports of the bank. The first-tier and base capital adequacy ratios dropped to 0%, below the mandatory minimums of 4.5% and 6% respectively. VBRR in June 2017 took over the Peresvet Bank, previously controlled by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Russia's state-controlled Sberbank posted 37% year-on-year growth of earnings to RUB63.8bn ($1.1bn) making a 24% return on equity (ROE) in February, under RAS (Russian Accounting Stand- ard) standalone results. For two months of 2018 net income gained 23% y/y ro RUB129bn with 23% ROE.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) will ease capital controls on the payment of dividends abroad as part of its efforts to gradually ease controls imposed by the government in the wake of the 2014-2015 economic crisis.
Russia's e-commerce market grew by 26% in 2017 to RUB1.725 trillion ($30.4bn), Prime said on February 26 citing the data by Russian Asso- ciation for Electronic Communications (RAEC).
Russian food exports reached the record-high of $19bn growing by 25% in 2017, according
to Bloomberg citing the Russian Export Centre estimates. Surging exports of wheat following the highest-ever harvest accounted for a large part of the increase, while the booming fishing mar- ket also played a role.