(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – December 6, 2013) President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said the government would have to improve the country’s economic performance in order to fulfill his campaign promises. He also complained that his tap water was sometimes brown from rusty pipes. Putin’s decrees from May last year, which seek to raise living standards, have […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 5 (Interfax) – Russia jumped 14 places in Forbes’ list of the Best Countries for Business in 2013, to 91st place between the Philippines and Paraguay. Forbes noted significant improvement in trade freedom (78th place) and innovation (74th) in Russia. On the other hand, “Russia’s long-term challenges also include a shrinking workforce, rampant corruption, and underinvestment in infrastructure,” […]
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(RIA Novosti/Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – December 6, 2013) Russia’s top brass are not immune from the same problems faced by ordinary Russians, it turns out, after the president and prime minister admitted to having rusty tap water from time to time. “Can you imagine: Even my tap water is sometimes rusty,” President Vladimir Putin said Thursday at a conference […]
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MOSCOW, December 6 (RIA Novosti) Russia’s Finance Ministry predicted serious difficulties Friday for the budget in 2016 and 2017 as slowing economic growth means there will be insufficient funds available to honor spending commitments. Short term and long term growth forecasts for the Russian economy have been cut repeatedly this year, with officials warning Russia is entering a period […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Maksimova, special to RBTH – Deccember 5, 2013) The Russian Central Bank has revoked the license of several large banks as part of what it says is a fight against corruption and a shadow economy. Banking industry experts are worried that the Central Bank’s efforts to clean up Russia’s shadow economy could […]
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NOVO-OGARYOVO. Dec 4 (Interfax) – President Vladimir Putin criticized the slow pace at which planned improvements to business conditions in Russia are being implemented. “Unfortunately, one-third of the measures in the approved road map have not been implemented on time. A whole host of proposals from business are stuck undergoing inter-ministerial coordination. Occasionally, the ministries propose limiting themselves to purely […]
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NOVO-OGARYOVO. Dec 4 (Interfax) – President Vladimir Putin ruled out the idea of boosting the tax burden on ordinary citizens in order to resolve problems facing entrepreneurs. The president criticized a proposal to collect additional budget funds to create infrastructure for housing construction, for example, by introducing an excise tax on soda pop. “Don’t do that. This means that a […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – By Anna Arutunyan – December 4, 2013) The Louis Vuitton pavilion controversy highlighted lack of transparency in managing areas surrounding the Kremlin As workers dismantled a giant Louis Vuitton suitcase that went up suddenly on Red Square last week, just who authorized the project and who issued orders for it to be taken down remained […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 5 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is convinced that the targets set by his decrees issued in May 2012 can still be achieved despite today’s recession and a slow pace of economic growth. “I am certain that we can and should fulfill them,” Putin said at the Russian Popular Front’s conference. “These decrees are […]
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(Kremlin.ru – December 4, 2013) Vladimir Putin held a meeting of the Presidential Economic Council. PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good afternoon colleagues, Two years ago at the Business Russia congress, we launched the National Business Initiative. We set the goal then of creating a comfortable environment for doing business in the regions and in the country in general. We […]
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TBILISI. Dec 3 (Interfax) – Georgia has diversified its export markets to an extent that, if Russia once again imposes a ban on Georgian imports, this would not be as strong a blow to local producers as it was in 2006, Georgian Finance Minister Nodar Khaduri believes. “Russia is no longer number one trade partner for Georgia, and our markets […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 3 (Interfax) – Sberbank of Russia (MOEX: SBER) President and CEO German Gref has taken a seat on the public council of the Economic Development Ministry, the ministry he headed in 2000-2007. The makeup of the board is contained in an instruction from Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev. Deputy Economic Development Minister and State Secretary Oleg Fomichev will […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – December 3, 2013) Sberbank CEO German Gref has joined the Economic Development Ministry’s public council, returning to a ministry that he headed from 2000 to 2007. The council’s membership, ratified by current Minister Alexei Ulyukayev, includes magnates Viktor Vekselberg and Alexei Mordashov as representatives of large-scale private enterprise. The heads of the Russian Union of […]
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BALI. Dec 3 (Interfax) – The ninth WTO ministerial conference in Bali will not resolve all the problems of the Doha Round, but even if it ends in failure the World Trade Organization “will not disappear – if only because there is no alternative to it,” Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said in an interview with Interfax before the […]
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BALI. Dec 3 (Interfax) – Russia’s Economic Development Ministry has lowered its forecast for economic growth this year from 1.8% to 1.4%, for 2014 from 3.0% to 2.5%, and for 2015 from 3.1% to 2.8%, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev told the press on the sidelines of the WTO conference in Bali on Tuesday. Ulyukayev said he expects Q4 GDP […]
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(Interfax – Gorki, December 2, 2013) Stable economic growth still has not been achieved in Russia, Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev has said. “The task of providing for sustainable economic development, where the key factor is the growth of labour productivity and the modernization of existing capacities, the creation of high-efficiency jobs and personnel training that is up to modern standards, […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 3 (Interfax) – The sentencing of corruption suspects to fines has practically doubled in Russia in the past two years, the Supreme Court said. “The number [of suspects] sentenced to fines has grown in the past two years, since the moment the amendments that significantly raised fines for corruptive practices came into force. Some 46.5% of all persons […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Gleb Fedorov, RBTH – December 2, 2013) Under Russia’s leadership, the G20 achieved major agenda changes. The presidency passed to Australia on Dec. 1. Changing the G20 agenda from an anti-crisis to a strategic development one was a major achievement during the club’s Russian presidency, according to several Russians involved in the talks […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 29, 2013) Russians will have racked up 10 trillion rubles ($300 billion) in debt by the end of this year, Vedomosti reported Friday, citing the Central Bank. Increasing consumer lending in Russia this year has created concern that the market may be overheating, with officials voicing concerns over possible financial volatility if the trend […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 29 (Interfax) – The outflow of capital from funds focused on Russian equities continued for the fifth consecutive week and exceeded $130 million from November 21 through 27, about the same as a week earlier, Emerging Portfolio Fund Research (EPFR) reported. Exchange traded funds (ETF) focused on Russian equities lost $37 million from November 21 to November 27, […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, November 27, 2013) Few Russians believe that the economic situation in the country will improve in the next six months or that the government is capable of improving the situation in the country. At the same time, citizens differ on the acceptability of strikes to solve urgent problems, sociologists from the [independent pollster] Levada Centre have told […]
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MOSCOW, November 28 (RIA Novosti) Russia’s Economy Ministry said Thursday that the ruble could depreciate further in 2013, weakening the currency to levels not seen for more than four years. The slide has come despite high oil prices and the ongoing tax collection period, which would normally be expected to increase demand for the domestic currency as businesses pay […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 27 (Interfax) – Russia’s modest economic growth despite high oil prices means that the economy is barely growing at all, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said. “Given such high prices for energy resources, it must be acknowledged that we are not in fact growing,” Shuvalov said at a business conference on Wednesday. That circumstance makes the development […]
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(Interfax – Sochi, November 27, 2013) Whether or not Ukraine signs an association agreement with the EU is an internal matter to be addressed exclusively by Kiev, the Russian president’s press secretary, Dmitriy Peskov, said on Wednesday [27 November]. At the request of journalists, he was commenting on remarks by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who had said that during his […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 28, 2013) The stereotype of the profligate New Russian no longer applies according to a recent survey, which found that 80 percent of high-income Russians regularly save up with an eye to future purchases. These members of the economic elite try to put aside at least four rubles out of every 10 they earn, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Kristian Magnus – November 28, 2013) Two customs officers halted the truck loaded with toy bricks at the border. Two millimeters. That was the extent of the error in the documents, causing the Lego truck to run into the brick wall of Russian bureaucracy. The truck was not granted entry into Russia until the documents […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Elena Drobinina, special to RBTH – November 28, 2013) Proposed rules would require foreign investors in Russian companies considered “strategic” to disclose their shareholders, but experts say the legislation is unlikely to affect investment levels. Russia’s Federal Anti-monopoly Service (FAS) has proposed new legislation that will require foreign investors who wish to purchase […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 28 (Interfax) – Stimulus spending to promote economic growth in Russia is inadvisable, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev said at a financial forum organized by business daily Vedomosti. He said world experience has shown that stimulus spending does not lead to a significant acceleration of economic growth, and has even led to problems in a number of countries. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Guennadi Moukine – November 28, 2013) PERESLAVL-ZALESSKY, Yaroslavl Region Russia is lagging five and a half years behind the U.S. in supercomputing technology and closing the gap is essential for the competitiveness of the Russian economy, an Academy of Sciences computing expert said. Supercomputers, which are ranked according to their speed of calculation measured […]
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(Moscow News – moscownews.com – Maria Stambler – November 28, 2013) Sharing, liking, posting, clicking, browsing – these actions are ubiquitous and have firmly cemented themselves into our existence with the rise of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. New forms of communication emerge every day, and there is fairly little doubt that our lives are affected by the way we use […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – December 2, 2013) The Russian economy’s conversion to a more competitive model will take from 7 to 15 years to achieve, former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said. The peak of the economic crisis is past, but systemic imbalances have still not been removed, Kudrin said, speaking at the Russian-German Chamber of Commerce, Vedomosti reported Friday. […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Pavel Vasiliadi, special to RBTH – November 27, 2013) Economist Pavel Vasiliadi discusses the benefits of buying undervalued Russian bonds. Pavel Vasiliadi is director of the analytics and risk-management department at the UFS Investment Company. Russia has long been an active player on the international debt market and in fact has strengthened […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 27, 2013) Seasonally adjusted investment in Russia increased 1.7 percent in October from September, reversing the decline of the previous months, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said in an interview published Wednesday. Ulyukayev also said that private investment had grown from January to October, compared to the same period in 2012. The total investment […]
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(Interfax – November 27, 2013) Few Russians believe that the economic situation in Russia will improve and the government can improve the situation in the country in the next half year, and citizens are divided on whether strikes are an acceptable method of resolving vital problems, sociologists from Levada Center told Interfax. The poll was conducted in 130 populated areas […]
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MOSCOW, November 27 (RIA Novosti) A giant designer suitcase-shaped pavilion installed in the middle of Moscow’s Red Square is being dismantled, city authorities said Wednesday, following a wave of public outrage and numerous demands for its removal. The organizers of the Louis Vuitton-sponsored installation were preparing to take it down on Wednesday afternoon, the city’s media and advertizing department […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 25 (Interfax) – Russian federal executive authorities and the OECD should increase their work to complete the relevant work for Russia’s accession to the organization before the end of 2014, a Russian government presidium decision published on the government website on Monday shows. The Russian Economic Development, Natural Resources, Industry and Trade Ministries and other federal executive bodies […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Maria Levitov – November 26, 2013) Goldman Sachs Group Inc. recommended buying Chinese (SHCOMP) and Russian stocks as a pick up in growth in developed countries and government reforms boost prospects for the “least-expensive” emerging markets. Goldman upgraded equities in the two countries to overweight, the equivalent of buy, from market weight, saying Chinese banks and […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 25 (Interfax) – The business confidence index for the Russian extractive sector negative (-) was 3% in November, down from -2% in October and -1% in September and 4% for the five months prior to that, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said. In the manufacturing sector, the index was negative (-) 6% in November, down from -5% […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 26, 2013) With the retirement or death of “the last generations who received technical education in the USSR,” the Russian Federation now faces an increasingly severe shortage of qualified workers and “the total de-professionalization of the workforce,” according to Yevgeny Gontmakher. And that, far more than many other problems the Kremlin […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 22 (Interfax) – The percentage of Russians who have savings has hit its highest point in the past few years. The ruble remains the most popular currency of savings, but Russians do not want to abandon the dollar or euro either, sociologists said. Some 22% of the respondents said they had savings in fall 2008. The percentage grew […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 22 (Interfax) – Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Russia grew 51.6% year-on-year in January-September 2013 to $18.61 billion, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said. Overall foreign investment grew 15.7% year-on-year to $132.385 billion. FDI grew 4.6% in January-September last year. FDI in this year included $7.279 billion in equity investment, up 15.2%; $10.13 billion in loans from […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 22 (Interfax) – The level of poverty in Russia rose to 13.0% in the first half of 2013, from 12.5% a year previously, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said. Rosstat said 18.4 million Russians were living below the poverty line, up 0.7 million from the same period of last year. Rosstat estimates the subsistence threshold at 7,372 […]
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Subject: 6th Annual Conference Doing Business with Russia From: eurasiamail@aol.com Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 6th Annual Conference Doing Business with Russia The Eurasia Center & The Eurasian Business Coalition December 4, 2013 At The Russian Trade Representation & The Embassy of the Russian Federation Washington, DC To Register please visit www.eurasiacenter.org and see Agenda. This event will allow participants […]
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(Interfax – November 26, 2013) Ukraine might have had short-term losses from its association with the European Union but gained in the long-term, former Russian Finance Minister, head of the Committee for Civil Initiatives Alexei Kudrin said. “I think that the reasons mentioned by the Russian president and Ukrainian entrepreneurs are quite rational. Most probably, Ukraine will lose from entering […]
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KYIV. Nov 25 (Interfax) – Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said economic problems are the most difficult issues in Ukraine’s European integration. “We have passed a long way and we have yet to go a long distance. Economic problems have been the most difficult issues on this road,” he said in an appeal to the nation, posted on his website. “But […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Evgenia Pismennaya – November 24, 2013) Vladimir Putin wasn’t having a great day. The Russian president had spent the August morning in a helicopter over Khabarovsk, near the Chinese border, surveying flood damage that had left tens of thousands of people homeless. Then he met with senior advisers who were on the trip, for a briefing […]
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KYIV. Nov 22 (Interfax) – Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has said that the government’s decision to suspend preparations for the signing of an association agreement with the European Union is tactical and stems from the current economic situation in the country. “The decision to suspend the signing of the association agreement with the EU was difficult, but it is […]
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NOVO-OGARYOVO. Nov 21 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said he urged the government and experts to determine practical steps to ensure stable economic growth of the country. “The work on development tasks should be regular and systemic. Deep expert elaboration of our strategic guides, proposals on practice steps able to ensure stable development of the country and competiveness of […]
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(RIA Novosti – November 22, 2013) US asset management giant BlackRock pulled more than $100 million from its Russian investments over a seven-day period beginning last week, the Prime news agency reported Friday. The amount is about a third of the investment that BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, has in Russia, Prime said, citing figures from Emerging Portfolio Fund […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 20 (Interfax) – President Vladimir Putin is opposed to the nationalization of companies sold at loans-for-shares auctions at the end of the last century. At his meeting with representatives of nonparliamentary parties acting chairman of the Right Cause Vyacheslav Maratkanov invited owners of companies that were bought at such actions “with gross abuses” in the early 1990s “to […]
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