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The Regions This Week
September 8, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 8
Eastern Europe
Over 1mn people protested against the "Muslim genocide" in Myanmar in Grozny, the organis- ers of the event claimed to Interfax. The Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov also controversially said live on Instragram that he will confront RussIa's official federal position should it side with the Myanmar authorities.
Russia is to ask the United Nations Security Council to send peacekeeping forces to patrol the front line in the embattled Donbas region to help resolve the conflict in southeastern Ukraine, Presi- dent Vladimir Putin said during a Brics summit.
New unforeseen obstacles to Russia's Gazprom Nord Stream 2 pipeline could emerge as the government of Denmark is reportedly preparing a bill allowing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ban the construction of new pipelines in its territorial waters that would stymie the construction of Nord Stream 2, Vedomosti daily reported.
The tariffs committee of Ukraine's infrastruc- ture ministry gave the thumbs up to a 22.5% in- crease in domestic goods transit rates by railway monopoly Ukrzaliznytsia.
Russian steel major NLMK announced a Eu- robond buyback and is preparing a roadshow for a new issue. The company is to begin the road- show in London, Zurich, and the US, organised by JP Morgan, Societe Generale, ING and UniCredit.
Russian inflation hit a historic low of 3.3% in August, exceeding expectations. Month-on-month CPI posted -0.5%, showing the first monthly defla- tion since August 2011. The result leaves little doubt that the inflation-minded Central Bank of Russia (CBR) will cut rates on September 15.
Russia's ruling party United Russia will hold its annual convention on December 10 in order to leave a chance for President Vladimir Putin to run for re-election in 2018 under party's umbrella, Gazeta.ru reported citing unnamed sources.
Foreign investors increased their holdings of Russian Eurobonds in 2017, according to data provided by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). A total of $12.53bn of Russian Eurobonds had been bought by foreign investors as of July 1, up from $11.68bn as of January 1.
Privatisation frontrunner Russian maritime shipping major Sovcomflot might not be priva- tised in 2017 after all, Vedomosti daily reported citing unnamed sources. In January-June 2017 worsening market conditions saw the net profit of Sovcomflot drop 11-fold to $15.2mn, while Ebitda declined by 24.5% to $282.9mn.
Moody's Investors Service downgraded the long- term foreign and local-currency senior unse- cured debt and deposit ratings of Bank Otkritie Financial Corporation to B2 from Ba3. Fitch has also downgraded the bank, which it calls a test for the market and abilities of the regulator.
Gas transit from Russian gas fields to European customers was at a six-year high after rising
by a quarter (23.4%) to 61.9bn cubic metres (cm) year to date, Ukrainian gas transport monopoly Ukrtransgaz said. Ukrtransgaz gave no reason for why the transit volumes had grown so much.
Struggling Russian Rossgosstrakh insur-
ance group needs recapitalisation of between RUB11bn and RUB17bn (€160mn-€247mn). The company was recently taken over by the financial group Otkritie.
Russia's state oil pipeline monopoly Transneft confirmed RUB27.6bn or RUB3,875 per share in interim dividends for January-June 2017, following its report of IFRS results for the pe- riod. The payout corresponds to 24% of IFRS net profit, which is below the 50% of IFRS requested the finance ministry as it struggles to scrap divi- dends from state-controlled majors.