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The Regions This Week
January 18, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Eastern Europe
The US Senate blocked a plan by the US Treasury Department to lift a round of sanctions on the aluminium companies of Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska. The decision was passed with 57 votes for and 42 against, after Democratic party leader Chuck Schumer persuaded 11 Republics to cross the line and support his bill.
Ukraine’s cabinet approved its revised "big pri- vatisation" list of state companies slated to be sold in 2019. The list, which has been reduced to 16 from 23 last year, still includes power GenCo Centrenergo (CEEN UK), whose tender failed to occur in December. The government decided it will make another attempt to sell it at the same starting price of UAH5.98bn for a 78.3% stake.
Tragedy struck again in Russia after a second gas explosion in a month caused another resi- dential apartment block to collapse. At the time of writing it was confirmed that one women was killed in the blast and four people are thought to be buried in the ruble.
Russia’s diamond mine monopoly Alrosa is set- ting up a subsidiary in Zimbabwe and will start exploration in February, Bloomberg reported. Geologists and mining engineers from Alrosa are to arrive in Zimbabwe in the next month to start operations.
Ukraine put in its strongest growth and the low- est inflation in the last five to seven years, the governor of the National Bank of Ukraine Yakiv Smolii said at a press conference in Kyiv.
Russians’ real disposable incomes decreased by 0.1% for the first 11 months of 2018 compared to the same period a year earlier, according to data from Rosstat. However, due to the payment of annual bonuses in December, by the end of 2018 income will show very weak positive growth. Real disposable incomes have fallen for five consecu- tive years, so even a mild increase will represent a milestone.
RVC, the state-owned fund of funds dedicated to innovation, intends to launch an investment fund to support innovation in the field of education technologies in Russia. With a considerable tar- get amount – RUB6.9bn (roughly $100mn at the current exchange rate) – and a 10-year duration, the fund is being created in the framework of a government programme called Digital Economy of the Russian Federation.
The Russian Ministry of Finance has found an alternative exchange to list sanctioned shares of Russians companies on the US Treasury De- partment US Specially Designated Nationals And Blocked Persons List (SDN List), Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moisseev told reporters.
The EU and the World Bank have drawn up a 12- year, €13bn Eastern Partnership infrastructure investment plan to help fund €630mn worth
of Ukraine projects, reports Deutsche Welle, drawing on a European Commission document. Three Ukraine projects listed are: repairing the Cherkasy section of the Kyiv-Odesa E-95 highway — €210mn; building a northern bypass highway around Lviv city — €120mn; and, building a new cargo terminal and rebuilding the second runway at Boryspil airport — €300mn.
Russian gas producer Novatek is revving up to launch its third LNG project, Arctic LNG-3. A sub- sidiary of Russia’s biggest independent oil and gas company Novatek, Novatek-Yurkharovneftegas, has registered a new company, Obskiy LNG, which analysts believe will be the operational company to carry out Novatek’s next large scale liquid natu- ral gas (LNG) project through to 2030.
Russian online retailer Ozon.ru is testing a service that will allow customers to grant loans to small and medium businesses among Ozon’s 2,000+ suppliers. The new service, dubbed ‘Ozon. Invest,’ will start operating at the beginning of 2019.