(Business New Europe – bne.eu – July 25, 2013) Despite its image as a den of high tech thieves international credit card company VISA reports that fraud in Russia is 10-times less than in its other markets. The company said that card fraud in Russia costs it 5 kopecks per 1,000 annually, a tenth of the company’s global average, VISA […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 25, 2013) Russians will spend 1.7 trillion rubles ($42 billion) abroad in 2013, which represents an increase of 13 percent over last year according to an annual study Citibank released Thursday, though half that amount is being spent online. But while spending abroad continues to increase annually, growth is slowing down in some categories. […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 25, 2013) Competition in the Russian economy is still weak, which is hindering the development of small and medium-sized businesses in the country, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday. “Our anti-monopoly legislation is quite strict, while competition is still weak,” Medvedev told a government meeting. The prime minister said problems remain on raw material […]
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(Pravda.ru – Margarita Troitsyna – July 24, 2013) On July 24, 1993, 20 years ago, the Central Bank of Russia announced the withdrawal of Soviet banknotes from circulation. From that day, Soviet cash was no longer valid on the territory of Russia. The reform was carried out to curb inflation in the country, but it caused huge panic in the […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 24, 2013) The number of whiskey fans in Russia is growing and the percentage of young people among whiskey consumers is on the rise as well, sociologists said. Consumption of whiskey increased in the first quarter of this year although a decline had been predicted, Romir Holding experts told Interfax on Wednesday. The opinion was based […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – July 25, 2013) Corruption in Russia has helped drive up interest rates on loans to the point where it’s choking off economic growth. “Rates are high now and that makes it hard to do business,” Garegin Tosunyan, head of the Russian Association of Banks, said at the St Petersburg […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Maria Balyuk, special to RBTH – July 22, 2013) In 2012, the McDonald’s fast food restaurant chain increased its sales in Russia by 19.6 percent, SPARK-Interfax reported. Although growing costs prevented the burger chain from scoring a more successful year than 2011, McDonald’s has remained one of the most successful restaurant operators in […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Witold Jancszys, special to RBTH – July 23, 2013) The business landscape in Russia has changed in the last decade and, now, more and more foreign nationals are starting businesses in the country, attracted to the opportunities for growth and space for new ideas in the Russian market. Foreign entrepreneurs doing business in […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Hobson – July 22, 2013) The Russian government faces an uphill struggle to make underdeveloped regions more attractive for investors. Officials and business leaders disagree on the feasibility of a draft set of mandatory standards designed to improve the investment attractiveness of districts and towns, which are set to enter into force by 2014. […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 23, 2103) Moscow was ranked the world’s second most expensive city for expatriates in this year’s Mercer Human Resource Consulting survey, published Tuesday. Moscow follows Angolan capital Luanda as the second most expensive city because of high costs for rental accommodation a luxury two bedroom unfurnished apartment rental for one month in the […]
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(Interfax – KALUGA, July 23, 2013) Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev considers the 2.4% slump in investments in fixed capital in June, factoring in seasonal and calendar factors, is a worrisome sign, but there is an improvement trend and the 2.4% GDP growth forecast is not changing. “Generally, of course, the sign is troubling,” Ulyukayev told the press on […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Lyudmila Nazdracheva, special to RBTH – July 22, 2013) Almost 6 percent of Russian university graduates register at the unemployment office immediately after graduating. Lawyers lead the way in this area. There is also an excess of economists, real estate agents, travel managers, civil engineers, bankers, teachers and psychologists. Russian universities are still […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – July 22, 2013) The fight against tax evasion by multinational corporations and measures to ensure recovery amid the global economic turbulence came into the limelight at the two-day meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers that finished in Moscow on Saturday. Finance ministers and central bank governors of the world’s 20 biggest […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ksenia Galouchko & Vladimir Kuznetsov – July 22, 2013) The conviction of Alexey Navalny, a political opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, highlights risks faced by investors as they weigh whether to buy assets in the world’s biggest energy exporter. Russia, which earned about $350 billion from oil and gas exports last year, has a Baa1 […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 17, 2013) What do these three things have in common: tanks, abortions and instant coffee? They are all things that Russia exports, performs or consumes more than any other nation. Esquire magazine’s Russian-language edition on Monday released a list of 24 things for which Russia is a statistically proven world leader. One standout is […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – July 19, 2013) The Kremlin was hit with what is like to be a serious of extremely expensive bills following the conviction of opposition blogger Alexei Navalny to five years in jail on corruption charges by a court in Kirov on July 19. Russia’s stock market tanked as the […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Tatyana Lisina, RBTH – July 17, 2013) According to data from the World Bank, Russia’s economy has jumped ahead of all the European nations, becoming the fifth largest worldwide in terms of GDP. Experts are confident that, in the future, the gap between the Russian Federation and the Old World will widen further. […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) The sentence of opposition activist Alexei Navalny is affecting the interests of small and middle-sized businesses and will lead to the outflow of young lawyers and businessmen from Russia, leader of the Civil Platform party Mikhail Prokhorov said. “The sentence passed on Alexei Navalny and Pyotr Ofitserov is not just a sentence to the […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Henry Meyer, Irina Reznik & Jason Corcoran – July 17, 2013) When Russian agents stormed the downtown offices of the Skolkovo technology hub being built near Moscow on April 18, a startled Intel Corp (INTC). executive got caught up in the raid. Dusty Robbins, head of global programs for the world’s largest chipmaker, was forced to […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtime.com – Anatoly Medetsky – July 17, 2013) President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday again said the Cabinet was slacking off. He blamed ministers for getting behind schedule in executing measures to develop the country’s Far East. “I’ll tell you what, dear friends, will you ever get to work or not? What is this?” Putin said, according to […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – MOSCOW BLOG – July 17, 2013) Russia passed an important milestone on July 15, overtaking Germany to become the biggest economy in Europe in terms of purchasing power parity and the fifth biggest in the world. This achievement comes on top of the World Bank’s decision a week earlier to upgrade Russia from a […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Jason Corcoran & Henry Meyer – July 17, 2013) Alexey Navalny faces possible imprisonment tomorrow in the highest-profile case against a critic of President Vladimir Putin since the prosecution of former oil billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky. A judge in Kirov, 900 kilometers (560 miles) northeast of Moscow, will rule on charges that Navalny defrauded state-owned timber company […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 16, 2013) The pursuit of a better life is the primary cause of emigration from Russia, said 54% of respondents acquainted with prospective emigrants. Sixteen percent explained their emigration as a desire for self-actualization, the Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM) told Interfax. Five percent of prospective emigrants believe that life abroad is better organized and […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 17, 2013) Russia urges the G20 nations to inform the markets about their debt policy guidance. “We think it would be advisable to put medium-term debt policy guidelines for countries with a lot of debt on the agenda for the G20 meeting [of finance ministers, which takes place in Moscow at the end of the week],” […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 16, 2013) The Business 20 (B20) on Tuesday unveiled its definitive White Book of recommendations for the Group of 20 (G20) leaders, of which Russia is president in 2013. “The recommendations were discussed during the St Petersburg (economic) forum and submitted to (Russian President) Vladimir Putin, and some of them will be presented during the summit […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 15, 2013) The income of the CEO of state company Rusnano, Anatoly Chubais fell by 42.5 million rubles to 217.7 million rubles in 2012 from 260.2 million rubles a year earlier. Chubais’ income from his main place of work dropped to 20.55 million rubles from 22.4 million rubles, materials from the state company show. As of […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 16, 2013) President Vladimir Putin criticized the federal government and local authorities Tuesday over their failure to ensure effective development of Russia’s Far East, Rossiya 24 TV Channel reported. “Are you going to work, or what?” he asked participants at a development meeting for the Sakhalin region, which he said has everything needed to become […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Adam Ewing, Ilya Khrennikov & Marie Mawad – July 15, 2013) Russian mobile carriers are gearing up for about $13 billion in spending to boost data speeds, creating the next major battleground for network suppliers. Russia is, by land mass, the largest country in the world, making it potentially tremendously lucrative for makers of equipment such […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – July 16, 2013) [The Development of New Moscow One Year On chart here: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/expectations-high-for-new-moscow-one-year-on/482838.html] A little over a year after the territory of the city of Moscow more than doubled in size, real estate prices are stabilizing, and expectations for improving infrastructure are high. On July 1, 2012, almost 150,000 hectares of […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 15, 2013) Russia has been ranked as the world’s fifth largest economy by GDP based on purchasing power parity, winning praise on Monday from Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The World Bank’s new GDP rating published last week ranks the United States as the world’s largest economy by purchasing power parity last year with $15.7 […]
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(RIA Novosti – WASHINGTON, July 12, 2013) Russia is doing relatively well, but needs a strong global economy to sustain and improve its recent growth, which makes the upcoming Group of 20 (G20) Summit it is hosting in September critically important to the country, Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, told a conference in Washington on Friday […]
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(Interfax -YEKATERINBURG, July 12, 2013) A third of Russian and foreign investors believe that corruption is an impediment, President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE) Alexander Shokhin said. “Corruption halts approximately 14% of businesses in Russia,” he said at a roundtable, “Investment Climate in Russian Regions through Foreign Investors’ Eyes”, held at the Innoprom 2013 show in […]
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(Interfax – YEKATERINBURG, July 11, 2013) Russia’s system for providing state support in the context of the WTO, which the nation joined last year, will fall into place in the next few months, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said. “In general, it seems to me this system will line up in a few months, and both domestic and foreign producers […]
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(RIA Novosti – Maria Young -WASHINGTON, July 11, 2013) American travelers to Moscow, St. Petersburg and elsewhere in Russia may find themselves in familiar surroundings, thanks to a surge in US hotel chains opening across the country. “Russia is one of our three top priority markets, because travel to and from Russia is growing fast. We see it as […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – July 12, 2013) Fear, greed and sloth are the driving forces of history. It is not a flattering view of human nature, but Professor Ian Morris of Stanford University makes a convincing argument that all of human history since the time of the troglodyte through to the 21st century […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 11, 2013) Housing and public utilities remain the biggest concern for Russians (55%) although the problem’s acuteness has been alleviated in recent months, the Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM) said. The second biggest problem is inflation (47%) and low living standards rank third (46%). Corruption and bureaucracy (44%) and healthcare problems (43%) follow. The other […]
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(Interfax – July 11, 2013) Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev has said he hopes the upcoming visits of US President Barack Obama and US Vice-President Joe Biden to Russia will strengthen Russian-US economic ties. He was speaking at the Innoprom industrial trade fair in Yekaterinburg on 11 July, as reported by Russian privately-owned Interfax news agency. “I hope that the […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 10, 2013) Russian oligarch Arkady Rotenberg has denied that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he has known for a long time, helps him solve his business problems. “Vladimir Vladimirovich and I started training in sambo wrestling when I was a little over 13 and he a little over 12. Our acquaintance goes back to that time, […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 10, 2013) Russia will not see any significant changes in its tax system within the next three years, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting with members of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE) board. The government has endorsed the principal areas of its tax policy development for 2014-2016, he said. “No […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Scott Rose & Olga Tanas – July 10, 2013) Elvira Nabiullina will probably kick off her tenure as Russia’s monetary policy chief by holding rates as inflation remains above target, which her predecessor blamed for the lack of monetary easing the past nine months. The central bank will leave the refinancing rate at 8.25 percent at […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Stepan Kravchenko, Evgenia Pismennaya & Irina Reznik – July 10, 2013) Josef Stalin built a massive luxury apartment compound across the river from the Kremlin to both reward and spy on his closest comrades. The one Vladimir Putin built for his clique is smaller and harder to find. Tucked among a warren of Soviet-era structures about […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – July 10, 2013) The name Lyonya Golubkov is well-known to many Russians from the 1990s television advertising campaign that encouraged millions of people to put their money into MMM, a vast financial pyramid whose subsequent collapse caused devastating losses. Choosing investment instruments is still a problem for most Russians as the financial […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 9, 2013) The Russian ruble is not in danger of any “almighty devaluation” and Russian citizens have no reason to begin buying large amounts of foreign currency, Ruslan Grinberg, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Economics Institute, said. “Our world is sinking into total uncertainty. It is a guarantee for high oil prices. In this […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – MOSCOW BLOG – July 9, 2013) The Russian government has just approved the next three-year budget that runs to 2016 that has cut spending on education and health in favour of boosting it on reequipping the armed forces. Relations between Russia and the west are probably at their lowest ebb since the fall of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 5, 2013) Former Health and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova could be appointed head of the Audit Chamber as early as Friday by President Vladimir Putin, several government sources said, Vedomosti reported Thursday. Golikova, currently a presidential aide, was tipped to replace Sergei Stepashin as soon as a new law prescribing the re-election of […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – July 5, 2013) World Bank and IMF upgraded Russia’s position in national income rating. World Bank has ranked the country 72nd in its gross national income (GNI) per capita rating. Now Russia classifies as a country with a high income level, as follows from the organization’s statement. “The major change for 2013 classification (FY14) […]
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(RIA Novosti – BLAGOVESHCHENSK, Bashkiria, July 3, 2013) As Russian officials put the finishing touches on a new pension plan that would peg Russian citizens’ retirement money to their labor record and wages, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that he was pleased to learn his future pension size was more than $2,000 a month. Medvedev calculated his future […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 5, 2013) The development of Russia’s armed forces should not deprive the national economy and public sector of financial resources, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “The defense programs should be reasonable and should not be a heavy burden on the country’s economy and public sector,” Putin said at a Russian Security Council meeting dealing with the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – July 5, 2013) David Bowie, Paulo Coelho and Alexander Solzhenitsyn are very different in life and in art, but they have one thing in common. They all traveled on the Trans-Siberian Railroad the iron artery that has brought freight and passengers across the country since it was first completed in 1916. […]
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(Interfax – NOVO-OGARYOVO, near Moscow, July 4, 2013) President Vladimir Putin on Thursday insisted on urgent measures to restart Russia’s stalled economic growth. “Let me stress that the situation in the economy is such that we can’t wait, and spending time on the constant coordination of positions between agencies is also counterproductive. We should act, move forward, make balanced systemic […]
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