Moscow press review for February 13, 2012
MOSCOW. Feb 13 (Interfax) - The following is a digest of Moscow newspapers published on February 13. Interfax does not accept liability for information in these stories.
POLITICS & ECONOMICS
The presidium of Russia's Supreme Arbitration Court has confirmed the virtually unrestricted right of any person, legal entity and public organization to challenge the terms of tenders for government contracts. The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service expects this to increase public oversight over government procurements (Kommersant, p. 1).
Russian economic growth will not slow to less than 4% as the government expects, but on the contrary will accelerate to 5%, analysts at Morgan Stanley believe. Only politics could prevent this, they reckon (Vedomosti, p. 3).
The meteoric rise in the popularity of political blogger Alexei Navalny, who has even been touted as a possible future president of Russia, has raised the question of how he financed his rise. Navalny has registered the nonprofit Fund for Fighting Corruption and has begun collecting donations, saying he needs $300,000 per year (Vedomosti, p. 1).
OIL & GAS
The development of an extensive system of oil product pipelines would help avoid a repeat of the fuel crisis that Russia faced in 2011, government officials reckon. This would cost about 350 billion rubles (Vedomosti, p. 7).
Gazprom has lowered its forecast for revenues on gas exports to Europe by 12% to $64 billion in 2012. The Russian gas giant now expects to export 154 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe at an average price of $415 per 1,000 cubic meters, instead of 164 bcm at an average of $442 (Vedomosti, p. 8).
BANKING, FINANCE & INSURANCE
Global funds are lining up for Russian equities. Despite political risks, funds have attracted more than $1 billion for investment in Russian stocks since the beginning of the year (Vedomosti, p. 7).
Russian banks are experiencing a mortgage lending boom. Mortgage loans totaled a record 713 billion rubles in 2011, including 100 billion rubles in December alone. Mortgage lending this year could reach 1 trillion rubles, the Home Mortgage Lending Agency expects (Vedomosti, p. 9; Kommersant, p. 9).
Sberbank, which successfully placed $1.5 billion in Eurobonds two weeks ago, is testing the waters for a possible offering of bonds denominated in Swiss francs. Russian issuers have not been borrowing very actively in this currency, despite the clear benefits of such loans (Kommersant, p. 10).
RETAIL & CONSUMER MARKET
The base advertising rates in Russian television broadcasts of the upcoming Euro-2012 European Football Championships have doubled compared to the last championships. For comparison, overall TV advertising rates in the past four years have gone up by a maximum of 50% (Kommersant, p. 1).
TELECOMMUNICATIONS, MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY
Transtelecom, the telecom subsidiary of Russian Railways, is buying major regional Internet provider Elektro-kom, which provides services under the SPARK brand. The deal could be worth 2.35 billion rubles, or more than half of Transtelecom's budget for acquisitions of broadband access providers (Kommersant, p. 12).
The Konfop international confederation of consumer societies is asking the Communications Ministry, Federal Anti-Monopoly Service and State Duma to take steps to lower the international roaming rates charged by Russian mobile providers. One of the proposals is to follow the European Union's lead and impose government regulation of roaming rates (Kommersant, p. 9; Vedomosti, p. 11).
Interview: Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson (Vedomosti, p. 5).
TRANSPORTATION
A controlling stake in Russia's largest port, Novorossiysk Commercial Seaport should not end up in the hands of a single shareholder, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina believes. She therefore proposes to restrict the participation of Ziyavudin Magomedov's Summa group in the port's privatization (Vedomosti, p. 1).
AGRICULTURE & FORESTRY
Strong winds and frost in southern Russia could deal a serious blow to the winemaking industry. Russian vineyards could lose 30-50% of this year's grape harvest (Vedomosti, p. 7).