Page 128 - RusRPTOct20

9.1.3​ Aviation sector news
Passenger air service is expected to plunge by 53% in Russia in 2020 ​to 60mn people, after, which it will return to growth at the global level and gain 5% in 2023, according to the country’s social and economic development outlook for 2021 and the planned period of 2022 and 2023 presented by the Economic Development Ministry.
"Around 60mn passengers are expected to be carried in 2020 (-53.2%)," according to the outlook. The decrease is due to measures responding to the coronavirus spread, the ministry explained.
"After the decrease of air service and passenger turnover by more than 50% in 2020 compared with 2019 growth at the average global level is expected in the projected period," the document said.
In 2019, Russian airlines carried 128mn people. According to the outlook, the number of carried passengers will rise by 5.2% in 2023 compared with 2019 to 134.8mn people.
The Russian aviation sector is costing the government a pretty penny.
Money from the National Welfare Fund (NWF) will be used to purchase a new issuance of Aeroflot shares—part of the government’s strategy to aid the struggling airline during the pandemic. The market value of 1.7 billion new shares that the state-owned firm plans to issue is 140 billion rubles ($1.9 billion). But it is unclear at what price the government will purchase the assets. Earlier in the summer, Reuters reported that the government planned to spend 80 billion rubles on Aeroflot shares. That is almost twice the value of the airline’s losses (42.3 billion rubles) in the first half of 2020.
State-owned defense conglomerate Rostec plans to spend 120-130 billion rubles ($1.6-1.7 billion) to develop a new version of the Sukhoi Superjet 100​. The civilian airliner was initially designed to contain 70% foreign parts. But after the U.S. and EU imposed restrictions on the export of dual-use goods to the Russian defense sector in 2014, Sukhoi was no longer able to access necessary parts. The new version of the jet, the Superjet New, will thus be designed with 100% Russian parts. Industry experts note that revamping the jet in an import substitution model will cost the same as it would to design a new airliner from scratch.
9.1.4 ​Construction & Real estate sector news
The share of foreign investors in Russian real estate deals declined almost 2.5-fold in the first three quarters of 2020 ​from 24% to 9.3%, Kommersant d​ aily reported on September 30 citing estimates from real estate
128 ​RUSSIA Country Report​ October 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com