Translated material
The price of a “special operation” in Ukraine. Online August 15
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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19:43 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz again spoke out against the ban on the issuance of Schengen visas to Russians. According to him, it is important not to complicate the lives of people who "flee from Russia because they do not agree with the Russian regime."
18:04 WSJ compared Russia's actions at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant with energy annexation. The newspaper, among other things, refers to the opinion of a profile analyst, former US diplomat in Ukraine Suriya Jayanti. According to her, the "energy equivalent of the annexation" of the nuclear power plant, which provided up to 20% of the country's needs, will deprive Ukraine of a cheap and reliable source of electricity and make it dependent on the EU, where electricity prices have just reached new multi-year highs.
17:55 for a year . The Central Bank postponed the publication of the monetary policy review
The regulator decided to analyze its monetary policy for the inflation targeting period last year. It was planned that the results of the analysis would be published in the middle of this year.
But “the dramatic change in external conditions for the Russian economy in early 2022, associated with increased external trade and financial restrictions and the introduction of capital controls, fundamentally affected the conditions for conducting monetary policy,” the Central Bank’s website says. It is noted that now summing up "is impossible without taking into account and additional understanding of the new reality for the Russian economy."
Therefore, the Central Bank postponed the completion of the monetary policy review to mid-2023.
17:05 The Wildberries press service linked the change of the site's name to Berries with an advertising campaign. “We neither confirm nor deny a possible name change. Berries is part of the Black Friday marketing campaign - a sale with big discounts - that is currently running with us. The site was also updated in the style of the advertising campaign,” the message says.
15:23 The main figure of the interview of the Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov to Interfax is the volume of parallel imports since the launch in early May: $6.5 billion, writes Bloomberg. In June, he also estimated parallel imports at $2 billion, and by the end of the year he expects $16 billion. This is still not enough, the agency notes: about 4% of Russia's imports in 2021.
14:32 According to the Ministry of Finance, the average price of Russian Urals oil for the period from July 15 to August 14, 2022 was $83.06 per barrel. The average price of Urals in the first half of the year was $84.09 per barrel, in July Urals traded at an average of $78.4 per barrel.
12:57 Brent oil on Monday fell by 4%, to $94 per barrel, following the release of negative economic statistics from China. Industrial production in the country in July increased by 3.8% yoy (forecast - 4.3%), retail sales increased by 2.7% (5%). Youth unemployment (16–24 years old) increased to 20%, while the overall unemployment slightly decreased to 5.4% from 5.5%.
Futures quotes for US indices indicate that the US market will open lower. Quotes of industrial metals are falling.
12:50 The Wildberries website changed the title in the website header to the Russian "Berries". What this is connected with, the press service of the largest online retailer has not yet explained.
11:31 Oleg Deripaska filed a lawsuit for the protection of honor, dignity, business reputation against Oleg Tinkov and Meta Platforms (banned in Russia as an extremist), follows from the file cabinet of the Ust-Labinsk District Court of the Krasnodar Territory.
The lawsuit claims compensation for moral and reputational damage in the amount of 2 billion rubles due to Tinkov's offensive statements on social networks. It is possible that we are talking about Tinkov's spring interview with Yuri Dud, in which the ex-banker called Deripaska "an oligarch and a thief." A court hearing has been scheduled for August 16.
10:50 Western investment banks, including JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citigroup, recently resumed deals in Russian government debt and some corporate securities, which were rolled up in June. The reason was the explanations of the US Treasury that exit from Russian assets is allowed, and the instructions of European regulators on the admissibility of side pockets (bad asset funds) from Russian securities. Thanks to the increase in trading activity, the investment company PIMCO even reduced its obligations on credit-default swaps for Russia by $300 million from $1 billion.
But Western banks are still afraid of both sanctions and the toxicity of Russian assets and furnish transactions with additional formalities. For example, they work in the mode of a risk-free holder, when an asset sold to a bank by a client is immediately and unconditionally sold on the market, or they prescribe in a separate agreement the cancellation of the transaction in case of problems with mutual settlements.
Starting today, the Moscow Exchange allows holders from friendly countries to trade in government bonds.
The main thing for the night and morning:
- Startups with Russian founders have faced serious difficulties in the US state of Delaware, which is considered one of the most popular jurisdictions for company registration. In some cases, they have no choice but to liquidate. the problem . figured out The Bell
- Oil production in Russia in August fell by only 3%, to 1.428 million tons. The reduction was mainly due to small oil companies who stopped drilling, well workover, and in some cases, production in general due to increased taxes on oil that has risen in price, which they are forced to sell at domestic prices.
- Saudi Prince Al-Walid ibn Talal (sometimes called the “Arab Buffett”) Kingdom Holding invested about $500 million in Russian assets just before the “special operation.” Most of all ($365 million) it invested in Gazprom's ADRs in February.
- Russia is restarting the financial market, dividing investors on the basis of "friend or foe," writes about Bloomberg the admission of non-residents from non-hostile countries to the Moscow Exchange bonds market today.
- The aviation industry is asking the Ministry of Transport to legalize the cannibalization of the fleet, including the "cross" cannibalization - to allow airlines to put serviceable spare parts on their aircraft from the sides of other airlines. Amendments are expected by March 2023.
- The list of IT companies accredited to receive tax and other benefits is waiting for a big purge of the Ministry of Digital Development with the involvement of industry experts. Now it has 27 thousand companies, up to half of which can exist only on paper.
- The Moscow authorities estimated the decline in the capital's economy in 2022 at 3-4%, mainly due to the automotive industry and metallurgy, the shortfall in revenues of the capital's budget - at 5%. The economy should return to growth in 2023.
- A quarter of the Russians surveyed by NAFI noticed that they began to pay less attention to the brand, appearance and environmental friendliness of product packaging. Taste, low price, availability of discounts and shelf life were often named as the main advantages of the product.
- The problem of fakes with parallel imports has risen to its full height in one narrow sector - sound engineering and music mixing. The fact is that most brands of professional headphones (Sennheiser, Marshall, Sony) refused to supply their products to Russia, Chinese brands do not provide an equivalent replacement, and there is a large proportion of bad copies in parallel imports.