(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Olga Tanas & Scott Rose – April 12, 2013) Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and his wife, the second-biggest earners among families of Cabinet members, plan to move their assets under Russian jurisdiction to comply with new restrictions. Shuvalov and his wife Olga are planning to shift their foreign holdings, Alexander Machevsky, a spokesman […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 11, 2013) Russian state officials, reporting their income and expenses exceeding joint income of their families for three years, will have to declare foreign bank accounts and securities kept not only in foreign banks but in banks of the Customs Union and the CIS as well, aide of the Russian State Presidential Legal Directorate, Valentin Mikhailov, […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Georgy Bovt, special to RBTH – April 12, 2013) Georgy Bovt is a prominent Russian columnist and political expert. The Russian anti-corruption campaign gains momentum. Will the Russian public be in favor of even stronger measures? Russia’s anti-corruption campaign looks like an attempt to “nationalize” the state elite by increasing their stakes […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 12, 2013) Capital outflow from funds investing in Russian stocks was at its highest in the last half year in the week of April 4-10, totaling $393 million, compared to $68 million the previous week, according to Emerging Portfolio Fund Research (EPFR) data. From the beginning of this year to April 10, total outflow from funds […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, April 10, 2013) The punishment for those found guilty of corruption should be as severe as for treason, Kirill Kabanov, head of Russia’s National Anti-Corruption Committee independent watchdog said on Wednesday. “We believe the penalty for corrupt activities should be equal to that in place for treason,” said Kabanov, who is also director of the […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Nathan Gray – April 8, 2013) The ongoing financial crisis may be hitting European economies hard, but the continent retains a good deal of interest for Russian customers looking to invest in property abroad. Reasons vary according to country, of course: prestige in Britain, skiing in Switzerland and Austria, warm climates in Spain, Italy and […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Olga Tanas – April 8, 2013) Russia agreed to restructure a 2.5 billion-euro ($3.3 billion) loan granted to Cyprus in 2011, bowing to a request by the European Commission, President Vladimir Putin said. “We are making our own contribution” to help the island, Putin told reporters today at a joint briefing in Hanover with German Chancellor […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 4, 2013) All Russian government officials should be obligated to invest their money in the securities of Russian issuers, deputy Central Bank chairman Sergei Shvetsov said. “Today a large number of officials disclose their assets, and we see vehicles, dachas and land there, we very rarely see mutual funds, Russian securities. The presence of securities in […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 5, 2013) A leak of details about offshore bank accounts belonging to Russian businesspeople and the wife of First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov threatens to embarrass President Vladimir Putin, who has vowed to crack down on the use of tax havens. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a network of 160 journalists around […]
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(Interfax / Religion – Moscow, April 3, 2013) The Russian church official urges Russian elite to realize their responsibility before nation and make their capitals work for the welfare of the Russian economic system. “Our elite has to consider attentively the signs of time and think whether it is time to change, to restore their connections with people and make […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 3, 2013 – Jonathan Earle) President Vladimir Putin has expanded declaration requirements for more than 1.3 million state employees and given the Kremlin the power to demand and check disclosures, significant steps toward carrying out the government’s stalled anti-corruption plan. While the government hailed the moves, laid out in two decrees signed by Putin […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Scott Rose – April 1, 2013) Russia won’t bail out people or companies that stand to lose money held at Cyprus’s two largest banks, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said. “If someone gets stuck and loses money in those two biggest banks, that’s really too bad,” Shuvalov said in an interview late yesterday on Russian […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 58 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Pavel Felgenhauer – March 28, 2013) The European Union is Russia’s number one trading partner, and for many years Moscow was seeking to establish a privileged political and economic relationship with select Western European “friends” like France and Germany. Moscow’s most important foreign policy objective since the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova and Howard Amos – March 22, 2013) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday intensified his criticism of a plan by European financial authorities to rescue the Cypriot economy, labeling it as “completely absurd,” in the most colorful response yet by Russian officials to the controversial measures. The proposal to impose a one-time levy […]
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GORKI (Moscow Region), March 20 (RIA Novosti) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday slammed the European Union and Cyprus for what he described as their dismal management of the island nation’s debt woes. Medvedev told journalists from European media outlets in an interview that the mishandling of the crisis had undermined confidence in financial institutions, in Cyprus and […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – March 20, 2013) As the financial crisis deepens in Cyprus, attention is focusing on Russia’s role in preventing the Mediterranean island nation from going bankrupt and exiting the eurozone. RFE/RL’s Claire Bigg spoke to Natalya Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank. RFE/RL: Michael Sarris, the Cypriot finance minister, was in Moscow this week to discuss the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos and Irina Filatova – March 21, 2013) A desperate effort by Cypriot authorities to win financial aid from the Kremlin failed to yield any results Wednesday, as a deal eluded Cyprus’ finance minister, Michalis Sarris, during a visit to Moscow. Russian companies are being hit by a freeze on Cypriot bank accounts as […]
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MOSCOW, March 20 (RIA Novosti) Cypriot Finance Minister Michael Sarris is set to continue negotiations on a potential Russian loan with Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov on Wednesday, after initial talks between the two countries’ finance ministries ended without an agreement. The Cypriot minister is in Moscow to discuss the extension of a 2.5-billion-euro loan that Russia […]
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MOSCOW. March 20 (Interfax) – Capital outflow from Russia was approximately $6 billion in February, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach told reporters. “Our estimate so far is about $6 billion,” Klepach said. In other words, outflow slowed in February but outflow for the first two months of the year was still above the official forecast for the whole year. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 20, 2013) Net capital outflow from the Russian economy has already exceeded the official forecast for the whole of 2013, despite slowing down moderately in February, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach said Wednesday. According to the ministry’s estimate, capital outflow in February was about $6 billion, whereas in January the Russian economy leaked […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – March 20, 2013) The sudden prospect that billions of dollars of Russian money might never return to its owners, due to part of the Cyprus bailout plan, evoked a slate of proposals here Tuesday to prevent the damage. VTB, the country’s second-largest lender, which has a subsidiary in Cyprus, laid out a […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – www.imrussia.org – Tatiana Stanovaya – February 25, 2013 – click here for original posting of article) Two important tendencies have marked Russian political life during the past few months. The first is the Kremlin’s attempt to control officials’ and lawmakers’ foreign accounts and real estate holdings. The second is the growing activity of independent bloggers […]
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