Govt to borrow $229 mln from EBRD for road construction
MOSCOW -- The Russian government has decided to sign an agreement with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to borrow U.S. $229 million to finance the construction of a St. Petersburg ring road and a Chita-Khabarovsk motorway, the government press service reported Thursday. According to the agreement, the loan should be repaid in 15 years and has a three-year grace period, the press service said. No further details were available. /Prime-Tass/
21:48 - 12th Sep [Thursday], 2002 ECONOMY
PM: Russia’s GDP will grow by 3.9%
MOSCOW - Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 3.9 percent in 2002, against the projected 3.6 percent, and industrial production will rise by 4.5 percent, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said at a cabinet meeting on Thursday. “Thus, a slowdown at the beginning of the year has been compensated for,” he noted. According to the Prime Minister, the curbing of inflation is a key priority now. He said inflation had reached 9.9 percent in January-August 2002, and it was 0 percent in September 1-9. In Mr. Kasyanov’s opinion, this shows that the goal of “lowering inflation forecasts to 14 percent” is feasible. He noted that, with such growth rates, the population’s incomes might rise not by 5 percent but by 7 percent. The State Statistics Committee reported Wednesday that Russia’s consumer prices had not changed from September 1 to September 9. In other words, the average daily inflation was 0.000 percent in September 1-9, against 0.02 percent in September 2001 and 0.003 percent in August 2002. “The lowering of inflation speaks about the lowering of interest rates in the economy, which, in turn, will lead to an improvement of the investment climate,” the Prime Minister said at the cabinet meeting. At the same time, he pointed to a negative factor which can destroy these expectations – non-uniformity of federal budget spending. In view of this, Mr. Kasyanov asked cabinet ministers to control spending in the organizations supervised by their ministries, and make it more uniform, to prevent a sharp rise in spending at the end of the year. /RBC/
18:35 - 12th Sep [Thursday], 2002 ECONOMY
Statistics Committee comments on zero inflation
MOSCOW - Zero inflation at the beginning of September is due to a seasonal decline in prices for agricultural products, head of the Russian State Statistics Committee Vladimir Sokolin told journalists. He was commenting on a report made by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov at a cabinet meeting on Thursday. Speaking at the meeting, Mr. Kasyanov said that the goal of “lowering inflation forecasts to 14 percent” was feasible. His optimism was based on the figures reported by the statistics agency on Wednesday. According to the report, inflation reached 9.9 percent in Russia in January-August 2002, and it was 0 percent in September 1-9. However, Mr. Sokolin said that agricultural prices usually went down at the year-end, thus compensating for a slight rise in prices for consumer services. He does not rule out that the 'zero-inflation' trend will continue in September. Most probably, this will happen, given that Mr. Kasyanov defined the lowering of inflation as a key priority. /RBC/
19:00 - 11th Sep [Wednesday], 2002 ECONOMY
AgMin sees 8 mln t grain exports in 2002
MOSCOW - Russian Agricultural Minister Alexei Gordeyev said on Wednesday he expected Russia to export eight million tonnes of grain this year. "We are working together with commercial companies. Our forecast shows that grain exports will rise 40 to 50 percent this year to about eight million tonnes," he told reporters. Last year Russia exported around five million tonnes of grain. Gordeyev's comments amount to a slight cut in expectations after his first deputy Anatoly Mikhalyov said last week that Russian grain exports could double this year to 10 million tonnes. /Reuters/ :: [Related Pages] [Find Similar]
18:13 - 11th Sep [Wednesday], 2002 ECONOMY
CPI seen flat as of Sept 9
MOSCOW - Russia's consumer price inflation index was flat in the first nine days of September, after a 0.1 percent monthly rise in the whole of August, the State Statistics Committee said on Wednesday. The flat average daily inflation compared with the 0.003 percent rise in August and a daily increase of 0.02 percent last September, the committee said in a statement. Consumer prices rose 9.9 percent in the first eight months of the year and officials pledged to keep 2002 annual inflation under 14 percent after a 18.6 percent rise last year. /Reuters/
15:17 - 11th Sep [Wednesday], 2002 ECONOMY
FATF may cross Russia out of blacklist in '03
MOSCOW - The Financial Action Task Force may remove Russia early next year from its list of states failing in their obligations to fight money laundering, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Tuesday. "It is 100 percent certain that Russia will be taken off," Kudrin told reporters. "As for the date, I think it will happen at the start of next year." Russia is on the FATF blacklist, along with Israel, Hungary, Lebanon, St Kitts and Nevis, Nigeria, Ukraine, Indonesia and the Philippines, since summer 2000. Israel, Hungary, Lebanon and St Kitts and Nevis were removed in June. Russia believes it has done enough to be removed from the blacklist, including the adoption last year of an anti-money laundering law. The Head of the government's Financial Monitoring Committee, created to fight money laundering, Viktor Zubkov, was optimistic about Russia being taken off the list even more quickly. "We are not losing hope that we shall be removed from the list this year. FATF experts may come to see us in September," he said. The next FATF session is scheduled for October. /Reuters/
21:36 - 10th Sep [Tuesday], 2002 ECONOMY
Russian budget surplus narrows in Aug
MOSCOW - Russia posted a budget surplus of 1.8 percent of gross domestic product in the first eight months of this year, the Finance Ministry said on Tuesday, citing preliminary figures. The Ministry said in a statement the budget surplus amounted to 124 billion roubles ($3.92 billion), down slightly from 125.6 billion roubles reported in the first seven months to July. Russia channels part of its budget surplus to a special fund to ease the country's foreign debt repayments that will peak at about $17 billion next year. It also said the primary surplus, which excludes foreign debt servicing, was 4.3 percent of GDP, or 289.1 billion roubles. In the first seven months of the year, the primary surplus was 255 billion roubles. Total budget revenues in the first eight months of the year amounted to 1.389 trillion roubles, while spending stood at 1.266 trillion roubles. According to the initial plan, the government had planned a surplus of 178 billion roubles for the entire year, but in August it trimmed its forecast to 77.35 billion roubles, or 0.7 percent of GDP, citing higher than originally planned spending. Economists of Troika Dialog investment house said that despite some deterioration in the budget surplus in August it should end higher than the government's latest forecast by the end of the year. "Assuming that the oil price does not fall dramatically, we continue to believe that the federal budget surplus may well exceed 1.0 percent of GDP this year and should at any rate be higher that the 0.7 percent of GDP planned by the government," said Evgeny Gavrilenkov, a chief economist at Troika Dialog. ($1=31.62 Rouble). /Reuters/
16:33 - 10th Sep [Tuesday], 2002 ECONOMY
Budget to sail through Duma in 1st read
MOSCOW - Russia's 2003 draft budget will sail through the State Duma lower house of parliament in its key first reading after most of the preparation surrounding the bill was completed in advance, a senior deputy said on Tuesday. But the second reading, where spending is discussed article by article, is likely to be more difficult, Alexander Zhukov, head of the Duma budget committee, said. Zhukov said the Duma Council had set the first reading, when deputies consider revenues, spending, annual inflation and the rouble/dollar rate for the year, for September 25. "All changes to the budget were done before it was passed to the Duma," Zhukov told reporters. "That is why I think that the reading will be smoother than in previous years and debates will be less heated." The draft 2003 budget sets spending at 2.33 trillion roubles, revenues at 2.40 trillion roubles. Budget surplus is set at 0.6 percent of gross domestic product. The average rouble rate should be 33.7 a dollar, the average Urals price is forecast at $21.5 per barrel. Consumer price inflation is budgeted at 10-12 percent, GDP growth at 3.5-4.4 percent. Zhukov forecast heated debates in the second reading when deputies were to discuss spending by article. The second reading is tentatively set for October 18. The budget is the only bill which goes through four, instead of three, parliamentary readings before being sent to the Federation Council upper house for approval. It is then signed by the president and becomes law. /Reuters/
23:31 - 8th Sep [Sunday], 2002 ECONOMY
CBR to ease export revenue sale rule
MOSCOW - The Russian central bank said on Friday it will phase out a rule on December 1 calling for local banks to deposit in advance dollars earned by local exporters and sold in the official foreign currency exchange market. Local exporting firms must sell half of their hard currency revenues to a so-called unified trading session of eight exchanges or straight to the central bank, a rule imposed after the 1998 financial crisis to slow down capital flight. The session is tightly controlled by the central bank as its results usually serve as a basis to set the central bank's official next day rouble/dollar rate. "The Bank of Russia believes that the changes will ensure liquidity of UTS instruments," the bank said in a statement. "And it would also reduce costs of operations of market participants and will help to increase the stability and transparency of the domestic foreign currency exchange market of the Russian Federation," it added. To sell hard currency during the unified session the banks have to deposit funds on the eve of the session. They have complained it was increasing their costs. Bankers welcomed the central bank's move. "It is another step in the right direction towards market liberalisation as the banks will benefit from not having to keep their funds at zero interest rates with the exchange," said Sergei Shepilov with Raiffeisen Bank. The central bank has promised to allow exporters to sell their export revenues also on the interbank market after a protracted dispute with banks and exporters campaigning for a more open and flexible currency regime. The bank said last month it was working on new rules allowing exporters to sell their revenues to buyers of their choice, with the changes to take effect also on December 1. /Reuters/
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