The Moscow Times

Business: RenCap Cuts RTS '08 Target to 2,350
Renaissance Capital on Monday slashed its year-end forecast for the benchmark RTS Index from 3,000 to 2,350 and increased its equity risk premium for the country from 4 percent to 5.5 percent in a sign of continued investor jitters.

News

Investors Back Call For Eased State Role
By Alexander Osipovich / Staff Writer Foreign investors reacted with cautious optimism on Monday after top officials called for loosening the state’s grip on the economy at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum over the weekend.

TNK-BP Quizzed in Labor Inquiry
By Anatoly Medetsky / Staff Writer The pressure on TNK-BP intensified Monday as prosecutors questioned one of its senior executives in an inquiry into the British-Russian firm’s hiring and remuneration of its foreign employees.

Chaika Forbids an Investigation
By Francesca Mereu / Staff Writer Prosecutor General Yury Chaika has issued an order forbidding the Investigative Committee from investigating a criminal case involving one of his top deputies, the latest development in a standoff between the two law enforcement entities, Kommersant reported Monday.

Kudrin Wants G8 to Create Global Food Fund
By Anna Smolchenko / Staff Writer Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said the establishment of a fund to help poor nations withstand rising global food prices will be high on his agenda as he heads to a meeting with Group of Eight colleagues in Japan this week.

Russians Forced to Sell Ice Cream in U.S.
The Associated Press The U.S. manager of an ice cream truck company will serve probation and pay a fine for enticing Russian students to come to Kansas City and then forcing them to work long hours for little pay.

23 Miners Are Found After Ukrainian Blast
By Lina Kushch / Reuters Rescue workers found 23 miners missing underground after a gas explosion at a Ukrainian colliery and were bringing them to safety on Monday through a narrow ventilation shaft.

Thai Court Delays Bout Hearing
The Associated Press A Thai court delayed a Monday hearing until next month on whether a suspected arms smuggler Viktor Bout could be extradited to the United States to face terrorism charges that could imprison him for life.

Bolsheviks Storm Russian Railways
By Anna Malpas / Staff Writer Twelve activists are detained after they break into the company's Moscow offices to support a rail union.

3 Stabbed In Ethnic Brawl
The Moscow Times A brawl between ethnic Russians and natives of the Caucasus in northeastern Moscow left three people hospitalized with head injuries and stab wounds, RIA-Novosti reported Monday.

Business

Rosneft's Q1 Profit Surges to $2.56Bln
By Tanya Mosolova / Staff Writer Rosneft said Monday that its net profit jumped sevenfold in the first quarter as acquisitions last year and strong cost control helped core earnings.

BP Sees an Era of New State Relations
Reuters BP chief Tony Hayward, whose Russian joint venture, TNK-BP, is mired in a dispute, on Monday called for new forms of contractual relationships between national oil companies and global majors.

Real Estate in Brief
Eurocement's $10Bln PlansRZD Unit to Build HotelsMirax Holds Kursky Tender

Investors See Safety in Russia, Brazil
By Sebastian Tong / Reuters Western housing bust or not, emerging market real estate continues to be hot property.

St. Pete Years Behind Moscow, Experts Say
By Shura Collinson / Staff Writer Development in the northern capital is lagging by about five years.

Firm Starts Work on $472M Cambodian Resort
The Associated Press A Russian company broke ground Saturday on a $472 million island resort along Cambodia’s southwest coast, despite one of its partners being jailed in the country for alleged sex crimes.

$3Bln Purchase Planned for St. Pete
Reuters Real estate developer PIK Group plans to spend more than $3 billion building high-class living space on 63.4 hectares of land it purchased in St. Petersburg, the company said in a statement Monday.

PIK Postpones Share Issue for Land
By Maria Kiselyova / Reuters PIK Group has indefinitely postponed a share issue aimed at financing land acquisitions, which it will fund with other sources, a company spokeswoman said Saturday.

Experts Say Multiuse Not So Handy
By John Wendle / Staff Writer Multiuse complexes have become popular in the city’s expensive, land-starved real estate market, but many participants at a recent conference said the downsides to such projects often outweighed their advantages.

Bank Boosts Its Mortgage Portfolio
Reuters Morgan Stanley, which closed its mortgage business in Britain and slashed lending elsewhere, is still investing in its fast-growing Russian mortgage bank, the bank's co-president was quoted as saying in a newspaper interview.

Polyus Full-Year Profit Plummets 96%
Bloomberg Polyus Gold, the country's biggest producer of the metal, said Monday that full-year profit fell 96 percent after a gain in the prior year from the sale of 20 percent in Gold Fields, the second-largest African gold producer.

3rd Interest Rates Hike Announced
Reuters The Central Bank said Monday that it would raise three key interest rates by 25 basis points, the third increase this year as the bank battles the inflationary effects of soaring commodity prices.

Ukraine's Naftogaz Seeks $2Bln
Reuters State oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy said Monday that it sent proposals to a range of banks to raise a loan of $2 billion to fund the purchase of natural gas, as it grapples with severe financial difficulties.

Fears of Recession Grow in Baltics
Reuters Annual first-quarter economic growth figures for Estonia and Latvia were revised down Monday, Estonia’s to a tiny 0.1 percent, sharpening fears of recession in the once-booming Baltic states.

LUKoil Loads Ice-Class Tanker in Arctic
Reuters LUKoil, the country’s second-largest oil producer, has loaded the first ice-class tanker at its new oil export terminal in the Arctic port of Varandei, the company said Monday.

Russia and Norway Tackle Barents Sea Border Feud
Reuters Russia and Norway began two-day talks Monday in the hope of making progress in a decades-old dispute over their maritime border in the Barents Sea -- a part of the Arctic that could hold large oil and gas reserves.

Gazprom Ends Its Drive to Control SUEK
Bloomberg Gazprom said Monday that it ended a bid to gain control of the country's biggest coal producer, Siberian Coal and Energy Company, because of ""uncertainty"" in the energy market.

Opinion

Moscow's Growing Skyline
n comparison with Dubai or any of China's metropolises, the pace of Moscow's current construction might appear measured. But if the recent acceleration of construction continues, Moscow's growth may well reach the level of the United Arab Emirates.

Business in Brief

Business in Brief
VTB Interest in Inter RAONew Deputy MinistersVTB to Split Planned LoanRostelecom's DividendIntegra Buys Well FirmSeverstal Loan CommitmentBudget Surplus Statistics

What Price Glory
By John Wendle / Staff Writer Re-enacting major battles from a wide range of wars is becoming a popular hobby as incomes rise.

Finding a New Guroo
By Nathan Toohey / Staff Writer The veteran Indian/Thai restaurant Guroo has just opened a second branch -- this time right downtown. The original has been around for years, so it is somewhat a surprise to see its sudden expansion.

Lemon Sole Belle Meuniere
Chef's Secrets

Put the Brakes On Russian Technologies
Hopefully, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov's revelation on Sunday that the authorities will scale back state involvement in the economy demonstrates the Cabinet's and the president's real intentions.

News in Brief
Italian Detained at AirportRed Square Will Be Closed2 Killed in Caucasus AttacksKazakh Miners BuriedCat Circus Sues Over Tricks

Regions Vying For Funding And Influence
President Dmitry Medvedev's first month on the job has provided a good opportunity to analyze the developing relationship between the new leader and the regions. Most important, we have seen a continuation of Moscow's policy toward the regions that was initiated last autumn with the appointment of Dmitry Kozak as the regional development minister.

Nothing Overheated In Russian Economy
Last week, the Moscow bureaus of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank declared that Russia's economy is overheated and that the government should take immediate measures to stem inflation.

Moment of Truth Arrives for Russians
By Simon Baskett / Reuters Russia's chances of upsetting highly fancied Spain in its Euro 2008 opener Tuesday will be undermined by the absence of playmaker Andrei Arshavin and striker Pavel Pogrebnyak. Arshavin is suspended, while Pogrebnyak has been ruled out of the tournament with a knee injury.

Germany Opens With Win, Croatia Pushed
By Trevor Huggins / Reuters Euro 2008 favorite Germany made a winning start with a 2-0 victory over Poland in Klagenfurt on Sunday, but there was trouble in the Austrian city as 140 mainly German fans were detained by police.

Business For Business

Automation of Leasing: National Peculiarities
By Dmitry Kurdomonov / Special to The Moscow Times When creating representative offices abroad, transnational leasing corporations solve the problem of automation at an early stage. It would seem that the simplest solution is to implement in affiliate companies the same information system as in the parent organization, but most international leasing companies take a different approach.

Leasing Taxation in Russia. VAT Recovery Specifics
By Ludmila Batalova / Special to The Moscow Times Tax benefits represent a significant advantage of leasing activities as compared with rental or purchase and sale contracts. However, leasing deals are often considered by tax authorities as a means of taxation avoidance and illegal VAT recovery.

Leasing Market in 2008
By Roman Romanovsky / Special to The Moscow Times The leasing market has grown in 2007 by 2.6 times and totaled $39 billion. It failed to grow even higher due to the liquidity crisis, which also impacted the market balance of power.

Russia's Leasing Market in a European Context
By Nikita Mashkov / Special to The Moscow Times Each year leasing in Russia strengthens its position and the last year was no exception. According to research by the Russian association of leasing companies, in 2007 the leasing market has shown unprecedented growth, more than in two times in comparison with 2006.

Community Bulletin Board

« to older

Features

Services

Tools

MT news

Testimonials

Sponsored links

News

Business

Opinion

Business in Brief

Business For Business

Community Bulletin Board

Currency Exchange

Weather

Hurdles Ahead.

Most Popular Stories.

Archive

Columnists