Moscow press review for April 26, 2013
MOSCOW. April 26 (Interfax) - The following is a digest of Moscow newspapers published on April 26. Interfax does not accept liability for information in these stories.
POLITICS & ECONOMICS
During his televised call-in show on Thursday, President Vladimir Putin made it clear that he is not pleased with the government, but does not intend to replace it yet. Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who was featured prominently in the show, is seen as the main candidate to replace Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (Vedomosti, p. 2; Kommersant, p. 2).
Russia's Economic Development Ministry is proposing to limit the growth of gas and electricity prices as a way to spur economic growth. The measure could help, or just prop up the incomes of the consumers of natural monopolies' services (Vedomosti, p. 4).
OIL & GAS
The development strategy for Rosgeologia, the company set up to consolidate Russian state assets in geological exploration, calls for increasing the company's market share from 3% to 15% by 2020 and boosting its revenue nearly six-fold to 45 billion rubles with new projects in Russia and abroad (Kommersant, p. 1).
Novatek has officially announced an alliance with Rosneft in lobbying the interests of independent gas producers in Russia and has suspended talks on a joint venture with Gazprom to develop resources on the Yamal and Gydan peninsulas (Kommersant, p. 11; Vedomosti, p. 13).
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday asked Russia's competition regulator to look into high fuel prices in the Far East, directly accusing state oil major Rosneft of monopolizing the market. The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service responded quickly, saying it would investigate (Kommersant, p. 11).
UTILITIES
Interview: Vyacheslav Kravchenko, CEO of NP Market Council (Kommersant, p. 13).
BANKING, FINANCE & INSURANCE
The supervisory board of VTB, Russia's second largest bank, will on Friday approve the start of a new share issue. The placement of the 100 billion rubles in new shares could take place in the middle of May (Vedomosti, p. 1).
The alliance between Russia's leading lender Sberbank and largest consumer electronics retailer M.Video, announced a week ago, has taken an unexpected turn. M.Video is evicting Sberbank's consumer credit subsidiary Cetelem from its stores for not approving enough loans (Vedomosti, p. 10).
REAL ESTATE & CONSTRUCTION
The Moscow authorities have begun a review of investment projects on land annexed by the Russian capital. They have already rejected the first eight projects for more than 200,000 square meters of residential real estate (Vedomosti, p. 11).
TELECOMMUNICATIONS, MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY
The net profit of Russia's largest social network, VKontakte plunged by nearly half in 2012 due to the cost of servers and communications channels. Founder Pavel Durov expects profit to grow this year as these costs decrease (Vedomosti, p. 10; Kommersant, p. 12).
Another battle is brewing over LTE frequencies in Russia, this time between television broadcasters and mobile phone companies. Part of the bandwidth promised to MTS, MegaFon, Vimpelcom and Rostelecom for 4G networks is to be taken away from TV companies, which say they need them for digital channels and HDTV services (Kommersant, p. 9).
TRANSPORTATION
The latest dispute with Sheremetyevo and the threat of a strategic partnership agreement with the airport falling apart have forced Aeroflot to make good on a threat to move some of its business elsewhere. The airline's board decided Thursday to move some direct flights to Vnukovo in the 2013/2014 winter season (Kommersant, p. 1).
The pension fund of Russian Railways (RZD), Blagosostoyanie will spend 5 billion rubles on building a rail line from the Elga coal field to Vanino Port in Russia's Far East. The fund also helped the Mechel group acquire the port, RZD president Vladimir Yakunin said on Thursday (Vedomosti, p. 12; Kommersant, p. 11).
