Translated material
The price of a “special operation” in Ukraine. Online August 11
The Bell continues to conduct online, dedicated to the economic consequences of the "special military operation" in Ukraine, which began on February 24
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19:40 The United States supports the creation of a demilitarized zone around the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the State Department said .
18:56 Vladimir Putin's decree prohibiting shareholders from "unfriendly" countries from leaving financial sector and fuel and energy companies before the end of the year may make it difficult for the Hungarian OTP Bank to sell its division in Russia, Laszlo Bencik, deputy executive director of the bank, told . Reuters He noted that earlier the deal aroused "serious interest" from potential buyers.
16:37 In July, the Russians withdrew about $3 billion abroad, and in the second half of the month they became the largest net buyer of foreign currency, according to the Central Bank's July review of financial market risks.
- Net purchases of foreign currency by individuals in July increased to 237.1 billion rubles in July from 176.1 billion rubles in June.
- Individuals purchased foreign currency mainly through banks, which then transferred it to foreign accounts. “In July, there was a decrease in balances on bank accounts of individuals in foreign currency by $3 billion,” the Central Bank stated, and again recommended “taking into account the risks of delaying transfers and storing foreign currency on the accounts of organizations from unfriendly countries.”
- For the entire month, small banks bought the most foreign currency - 319.6 billion rubles.
- After the abolition of the requirement for the mandatory sale of foreign exchange earnings by the largest exporters, this share did not significantly decrease (64% in June).
- Buying foreign currency, individuals reduced their positions in shares, becoming the main sellers of this category of securities in July (by 15.6 billion rubles). These shares were bought mainly by brokers as part of trust management.
15:11 For the first time, a large German fertilizer producer K + S has laid down in its plans for the fourth quarter a reduction in the physical availability of gas by 25% due to a reduction in supplies from Russia. At the same time, the company will have to spend an additional 100 million euros on gas, which is both fuel and raw material. In total, 10 enterprises in this energy-intensive industry in the EU stopped or reduced production in July.
Today, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the state will not leave citizens "alone with the energy crisis" and promised a third package of subsidies. Underground gas storages in Germany are now filled to 73.7%, the goal by November is 95%.
13:36 In a week, Estonia will close the borders for Russians with Schengen visas issued by the republic earlier, Estonian media write with reference to a statement by Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu. “Visas will remain valid. However, sanctions will be imposed on visa holders when entering Estonia, that is, they will be prohibited from entering Estonia,” the minister specified.
The list of exceptions is long - these are employees of diplomatic missions in Estonia and their family members, persons involved in international freight and passenger transportation, close relatives of persons who have Estonian citizenship or a permanent residence permit in Estonia, as well as those whose entry is necessary for humanitarian reasons. The ban also does not apply to Schengen visas issued by other EU countries. The minister estimated the number of Russians affected by the ban at 50,000.
11:58 The Saeima of Latvia declared Russia a state that supports terrorism. The statement, among other things, contains an assessment of Russia's actions in Ukraine as terrorism against the civilian population and an appeal to the EU countries to immediately suspend tourist visas and limit the issuance of entry visas to citizens of Russia and Belarus.
11:45 The IEA predicts a drop in oil production in Russia by 20% or 2 million b/d by the beginning of 2023, when the European oil embargo is fully implemented. The decline will begin as early as August after recovering to 10.8 million b/d in the past three months, the agency suggests.
11:24 Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin and Partners (RGD) intends to apply to Euroclear and the relevant European regulator in September with a request to obtain a license that allows private investors who are not subject to sanctions to unlock their securities and funds, reported by The Bell.
The total amount of claims of investors who have already applied to the RGD is about $500 million, the bureau notes. The volume of blocked foreign securities in the National Settlement Depository was estimated by the First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Vladimir Chistyukhin in June at 6 trillion rubles.
10:56 Ether cryptocurrency quotes jumped to two-month highs after a successful test of a new, faster and more economical version of the ethereum blockchain based on the proof-of-stake protocol (what it is and why it is important, you can read, for example, here ) .
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin limited himself to reposting a success message. However, this is one of the most important events in the crypto world. Work on the new version of the blockchain took several years, and if it is confirmed that everything worked as it should, the date for the upgrade of the entire system will be announced today.
Ether has more than doubled since its June lows, and Bitcoin, with its slow and energy-hungry algorithm, is lagging behind, Bloomberg notes.
10:22 About 5 million Russians suffered from the freezing of foreign securities this spring. Of these, about 500,000 were clients of VTB, which fell under sanctions earlier than other large banks. The group's clients were among the first to lose the ability to manage their investments and have been trying to figure out why this happened for several months.
People create groups in Telegram with telling names like “Showdown with VTB”, storm the offices of brokers and try to get an answer why they were not given the opportunity to save themselves from losses by selling papers on time. Together with the affected investors, The Bell figured out what happened and what the victims should do now.
9:31 According to the Central Bank, since the end of February, Russian banks have restructured loans for 9.5 trillion rubles, 88% of the amount fell on large businesses. The share of such loans in the total portfolio of 18 largest banks reached 19%. 848.3 billion rubles of loans, or 9.9% of the portfolio, were restructured for small and medium-sized businesses, and only 1.1% of the total portfolio was accounted for by changing the terms of 531,000 loans to individuals.
In relation to large businesses, it is not necessarily about insolvency: the revision of the conditions could be associated with spring exchange rate fluctuations and the devaluation trend.
9:07 Specialists of the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting (CMASF), founded in 2000 by the current First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, have assessed the likelihood of three scenarios for Russia's development, writes RBC . The most probable (47%) is the inertial scenario of a “new stagnation”, in which the sprouts of new instability and non-systemic “elites” will ripen. The probability of the target scenario of "struggle for growth" is estimated at 40%, it comes from the significant role of business in the economy and "borrowing development" on the model of China. The least likely autarkic scenario is 13%.
In all scenarios, the sanctions remain in place for 13-15 years, however, CMASF experts expect the “erosion” of the sanctions regime in a few years.
Independent experts believe that the likelihood of autarky is higher in reality, and modernization is much lower. About why Russia failed to achieve noticeable success in import substitution eight years before the “special operation”, The Bell told here .
8:49 The main thing for the night and morning:
- In July, the Chinese vendor Realme came in second in sales of smartphones in Russia in units, surpassing Apple and Samsung combined in this indicator, reports Kommersant citing an MTS report. Sales of the American and Korean brands are rapidly falling - the once leader Samsung took only 8.5% of the market in pieces at the end of the month, and Apple - 7%. Retailers attribute this to a lack of official supplies and scarce parallel imports.
- After the imposition of an embargo on the import of Russian oil and oil products, the EU countries increased their purchases of this raw material from Russia, writes RBC with reference to Eurostat data. Deliveries of Russian crude oil to Europe increased compared to May by 0.4% in physical terms, oil products - by 9.7%. Italy especially excelled, increasing imports by 20%.
- At the end of July, The Bell wrote about a possible division of Yandex's assets with its founder Arkady Volozh, as a result of which part of the company's services could be transferred abroad. It was about several projects, including drones, The Bell sources said. Kommersant learned that the Yandex team, which develops drones, has already begun transferring its processes from domestic platforms to foreign services. The company assures that the source code of the project will remain in Russia, but it is thinking about entering new foreign markets, such as Serbia.
- The Tinkoff Investments broker bought back the blocked assets that were previously included in the Tinkoff Eternal Portfolio USD exchange fund and were frozen due to the break in the NSD-Euroclear bridge, RBC . writes Their amount is estimated at more than 500 million rubles, and the number of customers who were previously affected by the freeze amounted to more than 450 thousand people. Trading in the Tinkoff Eternal Portfolio USD fund on the Moscow Exchange will resume on Thursday.