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The Regions This Week
August 11, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Eastern Europe
Russia decided to not lift the ban on imports of Turkish tomatoes, Russian Minister of Agricul- ture Alexander Tkachev said. The prolongation of the ban was necessary because investments had been made in import substitution.
A flooding accident at the Mir mine of Russian uncut diamond major Alrosa led to the shutdown of the mine and left eight people out of 142 min- ers on the shift missing. The mine supplies about 10% of total Alrosa's diamond output.
Ukraine's state-owned gas monopoly Naftogaz will increase its claim against Russia's Gazprom over the 2009 transit contract in the Arbitration Institute Tribunal of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce by $5bn to $13bn, according to the company's chief commercial director.
Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili left Poland for Lithuania. The former head of state is now stateless with both his Georgian and Ukrainian citizenships having been rescinded.
Inflation fell to below the Central Bank of Rus- sia's (CBR) target level of 4% in July, the lowest level since the bank switched to inflation target- ing policy in late 2014 and lowest level since May 2012. Russia's inflation slowed to 3.9% in year-on- year terms and 0.1% in month-on-month terms
in July.
Net capital outflow from Russian in January- July amounted to $13.1bn, according to the estimates of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). The outflow increased from $8.8bn for the same period of last year. Previously, the balance of pay- ments data showed an outflow of $14.7bn in the first half of 2017 (January-June), which makes an inflow of $1.6bn in July alone.
Russia’s central bank is considering limiting companies' foreign borrowing in case of excess debt. Russian banks and companies have raised around $15bn in the year to date from the global
markets, $13bn of which was placed by compa- nies and only $2bn by banks.
The CEO of Russia's largest state-controlled bank
Sberbank said the lender's largest real-sector clients are cutting their borrowings. "Out credit portfolio is declining in two segments: municipal and sub-federal, as well as for the largest compa- nies," German Gref said.
Russia's largest oil company Rosneft paid out $6bn in prepayments for supplies of oil from Venezuelan PDSVA, according to the deputy head of oil major Alexander Krastilevsky. The figure is much higher than the $1.5bn in prepayments to PDSVA previously revealed in Rosneft's January- June IFRS report.
Russian conglomerate AFK Sistema saw its shares decline by 3% on August 8 on news that Russian courts have kept Sistema's assets fro- zen in the controversial legal case with oil major Rosneft. The shares are now down by about 88% since the legal challenge began.
Russia's largest private bank Alfa Bank could lose the right to receive federal budget funding on its deposits, Vedomosti daily reported. As of August private funds requesting to hold federal funds will be required to have at least A- rating from two domestic rating agencies ACRA and RAEX, while previously only ACRA rating was nec- essary. Alfa Bank is currently only rated by RAEX.
Clients of Otkritie Bank experienced disruptions with ATMs and credit card payments on August 5, which the bank attributed to an accident on power supply links to headquarters, amid reports that the Russian commercial lender is looking
for ways to boost capital. Meanwhile, the bank is reported to be putting a portfolio of overdue retail loans worth RUB35bn (€0.49bn) up for sale.