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The Regions This Week
July 6, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 12
Eastern Europe
Nine of out ten Russians (88%) say they don't want to live or work abroad, up from one in seven (70%) following the collapse of the Soviet Union
in 1991, according to the state owned pollster, the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM).
The Economic Court of Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region refused to consider claims filed by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) against former co- owner of nationalised PrivatBank Ihor Kolomoisky because he lives in Switzerland. The NBU is trying to recover UAH4.855bn ($184mn) of refinancing loans issued to the battered lender in 2008-2015, accord- ing to the finclub.ua online outlet.
Shareholders of Russian MobileTelesystems (MTS) approved a buyback of the mobile major's shares worth RUB30bn ($0.5bn) over the next two years at their annual meeting. The timing and the distribution of the buyback tranches will be announced separately.
Russian state atomic energy corporation Ro- satom set up a venture fund with RUB3bn ($47.5mn at the current exchange rate), along with other limited partners, christened Digital Evolution Ventures. The fund will focus on busi- ness solutions for a range of promising industries, not only nuclear related.
Damage from cybercrimes in Russia in 2018 could amount to RUB1.1 trillion ($17.4bn), deputy head of Russia's largest bank Sberbank Stanislav Kuznetsov estimated, as cited by Tass. The global economic cybercrime damage is estimated at $1.5 trillion.
The number of reported corporate raids in Ukraine almost doubled in 2017 compared to 2014, the General Prosecutor’s Office reported. There were 414 corporate raids reported in 2017, compared to 234 raids reported in 2014.
The private banking branches of Sberbank, Rus- sia’s national savings bank, and Alfa-Bank will
offer cryptocurrency-based investment options to their clients. The new products will combine six of the most frequently traded cryptocurrencies, includ- ing Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin.
The Development Bank of Belarus will issue a Be- larusian ruble denominated Eurobond in 2018, ac- cording to the nation's First Deputy Finance Minister Maksim Yermolovich. The state-owned development agency has plans to float the Eurobonds in the coun- try's domestic currency, the Belarusian ruble — a first — of up to BYN500mn (around $250mn).
Russian giant Gazprom could start exports of nat- ural gas to Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary through Turkish Stream in 2020, its head Aleksey Miller said. At the end of May, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borissov announced that Russia will extend the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline to Bulgaria and include it in the country’s network.
Chinese Alibaba Group started online food product sales in Russia on its Tmall platform, RBC business daily reported. The assortment will initially comprise Chinese producers, but could be extended to local producers as well, with the key focus currently being on seafood.
Russia and Saudi Arabia are pushing the Opec+ alliance of oil producers to develop a new meth- odology of monitoring the agreements on oil output cuts. The monitoring procedures could be revised to bring compliance with agreed oil output levels to 100%. In the meantime, the oil output of Opec grew to 32.32mn barrels per day in June — its highest since January.
Russian natural gas giant Gazprom will pay a higher mineral extraction tax after the State Duma passed respective amendments to the Tax Code. Previously the finance ministry and the gov- ernment set out to raise an additional RUB72bn ($1.12bn) for the budget from Gazprom to com- pensate for the low dividends the company paid out in 2017.