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The Regions This Week
July 7, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 10
Eastern Europe
Russia's Gazprom and CNPC will launch exports of natural gas through the Power of Siberia pipeline from December 20, 2019, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said. Gazprom’s 30-year supply deal with CNPC for 38bn cubic metres of gas annually was closed in May 2015 amid tensions with the West over Russia's actions in Ukraine.
President Petro Poroshenko signed a law aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s cooperation with Nato. The aim of the document, adopted by the country's parliament in June, is to eventually qualify for membership of the military alliance.
Brussels called for more transparency over Russian lobbying of the EU. The EU Transparency Register lists only 16 lobbying organisations from Russia with a combined lobby expenditure of just €3.3mn, according to a Transparency Interna- tional report.
Minister of Agriculture Alexander Tkachev expects the food embargo imposed by Russia on EU products to stay in force until 2020. The sanc- tions were introduced in 2014 as Russia’s re- sponse to Western sanctions.
Suspects in the shooting down of Malaysia Air- lines Flight MH17 in East Ukraine three years ago will be prosecuted in a court in the Nether- lands, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said. No sus- pects have been named in the destruction of the airliner on July 17, 2014.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko asked parliament to strip immunity from five lawmakers in order to probe them over bribery, tax evasion and embezzlement charges, the larg- est of which amounts to $46m. Coincidentally, or not, the prosecutor general unveiled this unprece- dented anticorruption push while President Petro Poroshenko was on a visit to the US.
Ukraine's shadow economy decreased to 34% of GDP in 2016 from 40% in 2015, according to a re-
port published by the Economic Development and Trade Ministry. The decline was attributed to the maintenance of relative macroeconomic stability in the country, renewal of economic growth, im- provement of the business climate due to deregu- lation, and legalisation of the labour market due to a lower social security tax.
The National Bank of Ukraine left its key poli- cy rate unchanged at 12.5% per annum due to the need to reduce risks to achieving the inflation targets set for 2017 and 2018. Although headline inflation has increased in recent months, as ex- pected, core inflation has been stable.
Manufacturing PMI in Russia slipped in
June, showing only fractional improvement in business conditions, Markit reported. Russia’s manufacturing PMI was 50.3 in June, down from 52.4 in May.
Russia's Gazprom plans to invest $2-2.5bn in the gas infrastructure of Belarus by 2020. The Rus- sian pipeline exports monopolist already owns the Belarusian section of the Yamal-Europe pipeline
Ukraine's PrivatBank took control of one third of the country's largest ski resort Bukovel located in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. PrivatBank was nationalised in December.
Ukraine exported a record 43.8mn tonnes of grain in the marketing year 2016/17, up 11% y/y and a new all-time high. Exporters benefitted from a record harvest of 66mn tonnes gathered in 2016.
Ukrainian state gas company Naftogaz and Rus- sia's Gazprom are holding negotiations over amendments to the gas supply contract and final settlements between them based on the recent ruling of Arbitration Institute Tribunal of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. In late May, the arbitration rejected Gazprom's multi-billion 'take-or-pay' claims against Naftogaz.