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The Regions This Week
November 23, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Eastern Europe
Ukrainian agriculture exports could reach or exceed a record-breaking $18bn in 2018, mainly due to growing demand from Asia, especially India, according to the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club Association. 2012 holds the current record for Ukrainian agricultural exports with $17.9bn in foreign sales.
Russian state-controlled integrated telecom major Rostelecom, mobile operator MegaFon, and state technology corporation Rostec are consid- ering joining forces to develop 5G networks in Russia using domestic technology. Russia is pre- paring to start the rollout of 5G networks, but the restrictive cost of the new generation technology has until now kept the specific plans unclear.
Yuri Boiko was unanimously selected as the presidential candidate representing part of Ukraine’s pro-Russian political forces, Op- position Platform For Life party. The party will represent the interests of the residents of the southeastern regions, as well as Ukraine’s Rus- sian-speaking residents.
Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russian gas giant Gazprom, posted Ebitda of $3bn in the third quarter of 2018, up by 11% q/q, with the bottom line of $2bn jumping 29% q/q, slightly beating the consensus expectations. The company generated $0.54bn of free cash flow (FCF) in the reporting quarter and $1.4bn for January- September overall.
Ukraine’s retail sales increased by 5.4% y/y in real terms in January-October, following 5.5% y/y growth in January-September, according to state statistics service Ukrstat. In October alone, real retail sales picked up 5% y/y and 2% month-on- month in real terms.
Russia's second-largest natural gas producer and global liquefied natural gas runner-up Novatek announced the completion of the third line of its Yamal LNG project one year ahead of
schedule and reaching the full capacity of 16.5mn tonnes annually.
Base sector data published by Rosstat statistics agency showed fixed capital investment accel- eration to 5.5% year-on-year in Russia in the third quarter of 2018, putting January-September investment growth at 4.5% y/y. The 3Q18 reading visibly accelerated from the 2.8% y/y investment growth in 2Q18.
Russian mobile operator MobileTelesys-
tems (MTS) and its subsidiary MTS Bank will start to issue short-term loans on virtual credit cards to subscribers. The first such offer in Rus- sia will credit the users on a virtual account not pegged to any actual credit card or online and offline purchases.
The endemic corruption in Ukraine is costing the country some 2 percentage points (pp)
of growth, the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) representative in Ukraine said. The IMF forecasts that annual growth in Ukraine would be 2pp higher if it weren’t for corruption.
Russian heavy vehicle maker Kamaz raised RUB9.5bn ($145mn) from the Eurasian Develop- ment Bank (EABR) for 3.72% of the company's treasury shares. The banks commented that the deal included both equity and bond issuance.
Russian medium-distance passenger jet Sukhoi Super Jet 100 (SSJ-100) is not performing well due to problems with engines, Vedomosti daily reported citing unnamed top managers of four airlines and three leasing companies that have operated SSJs.
Hungary's low cost airline Wizz Air is going to invest $2.5bn to increase its Ukrainian fleet with 20 new Airbus A320 and Airbus A321 planes, according to Wizz Air CEO József Váradi, who met Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko this week.