Russian Economy General News: #3

Austin wrote:Good Read with lot of stastics to backup , Russia Economy is not as Fragile as it is made to be

Putin 2000 – 2014, Midterm Interim Results: Diversfication, Modernization and the Role of the State in Russia’s economy

Austin wrote:Good Read with lot of stastics to backup , Russia Economy is not as Fragile as it is made to be

Putin 2000 – 2014, Midterm Interim Results: Diversfication, Modernization and the Role of the State in Russia’s economy

Austin wrote:Good Read with lot of stastics to backup , Russia Economy is not as Fragile as it is made to be

Putin 2000 – 2014, Midterm Interim Results: Diversfication, Modernization and the Role of the State in Russia’s economy

Hannibal Barca wrote:If Russia realize that needs to develop end product economy then it is OK, else they will never stop being weak economically.
To do this they need to realize that they must grow strong private sector.
This needs transparency, low corruption, trustworthy judicial system and business friendly legislation.

Hannibal Barca wrote:What China and India has to do with Russia? Compare analogous countries.
Now prove wrong the rest of my points please.

kvs wrote:

Austin wrote:Good Read with lot of stastics to backup , Russia Economy is not as Fragile as it is made to be

Putin 2000 – 2014, Midterm Interim Results: Diversfication, Modernization and the Role of the State in Russia’s economy

Nice find.   It is rather clear that the NATO's anti-Russian hysteria is driven by the fact that Russia is becoming a serious
economic competitor.

Hannibal Barca wrote:

sepheronx wrote:

Hannibal Barca wrote:What China and India has to do with Russia? Compare analogous countries.
Now prove wrong the rest of my points please.

China and India are the largest producers of end goods as neither have any real resources and isnt resource based. Both economies are doing wonders and business is real good, and neither have transparency or even a justice system worth beans (well, India does but has been somewhat questionable). Only real country in west who has all you mentioned and is a successful end product creator is Germany. USA produces very little these days other than heavy industrial goods, and even they are not doing all that well (mostly its admin is making money on its assets worldwide).

Those you mentioned will help small businesses of course. Hence why Putin said what he did for small business. But I dont even consider these prime need for large companies, as they thrive in Russia already under a corrupt system (more money to pay off people for contracts).

Really? Now I am about to renovate my kitchen. Can you please give me a Russian supplier for my electronics? You know, oven, microwave, refrigerator, washing machines et all.
The same for an Indian brand please. Also I want a Russian made classic guitar because my Italian one is quite old. I am also interested for a new Russian television you know the curved ones you can buy this days and a stereophonic system cause I have a lot of discs I still want to listen from time to time. Come on give me some Russian alternatives, you know this will be some 10.000 euros the next 2 months or something.

kvs wrote:They are indeed a collection of bubbleheads.   The gas supply from the Capsian Sea basin has been an epic disappointment after all the hype
during the 1990s.   Much like the oil prospects, e.g. Kashagan, which have been a flop.   The country with the most in gas reserves
with a Caspian Sea coastline is Iran and its reserves are in Persian Gulf along with those of Qatar.  Turkmenistan is the only other Caspian
option but its production has been allocated for China and it really cannot fill the EU's demand.  Azerbaijan is not really even worthy
of note.   This new project is just Nabucco rehashed and Nabucco flopped for the simple reason that it could not be filled with enough
gas to justify the massive cost.

But really, who gives a rat's a** about the EU.  Let them eat their own sh*t.  

Russia, Turkey pivot across Eurasia
By Pepe Escobar

The latest, spectacular "Exit South Stream, Enter Turk Stream" Pipelinistan gambit will be sending big geopolitical shockwaves all across Eurasia for quite some time. This is what the New Great Game in Eurasia is all about.

In a nutshell, a few years ago Russia devised North Stream - fully operational - and South Stream - still a project - to bypass unreliable Ukraine as a gas transit nation. Now Russia devises a new sweet deal with Turkey to bypass the "non-constructive" (Putin’s words) approach of the European Commission (EC) concerning the European "Third Energy Package", which prohibits

one company from controlling the full cycle of extraction, transportation and sale of energy resources.

Background is essential to understand the current game. Already five years ago I was following in detail Pipelineistan’s ultimate opera - the war between rival pipelines South Stream and Nabucco. Nabucco eventually became road kill. South Stream may eventually be resurrected, but only if the EC comes to its senses (don’t bet on it.)

The 3,600 kilometer South Stream should be in place by 2016, branching out to Austria and the Balkans/Italy. Gazprom owns it with a 50% stake - along with Italy’s ENI (20%), French EDF (15%) and German Wintershall, a subsidiary of BASF (15%). As it stands, these European energy majors are not exactly beaming - to say the least. For months, Gazprom and the EC were haggling about a solution, but in the end Brussels predictably succumbed to its own mediocrity - and relentless US pressure over weak-link and European Union member Bulgaria.

Russia still gets to build a pipeline under the Black Sea, but one now redirected to Turkey and, crucially, pumping the same amount of gas South Stream would. Not to mention Russia gets to build a new LNG (liquefied natural gas) central hub in the Mediterranean. Thus Gazprom has not spent US$5 billion in vain (finance, engineering costs). The redirection makes total business sense. Turkey is Gazprom’s second-biggest customer after Germany; much bigger than Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria combined.

Russia also advances a unified gas distribution network capable of delivering natural gas from anywhere in Russia to any hub alongside Russia’s borders.

And as if it was needed, Russia gets yet another graphic proof that its real growth market in the future is Asia, especially China - not a fearful, stagnated, austerity-devastated, politically paralyzed EU. The evolving Russia-China strategic partnership implies Russia as complementary to China, excelling in major infrastructure projects from building of dams to laying out pipelines. This is trans-Eurasia business with a sharp geopolitical reach and not subjected to ideology-drenched politics.

Russian "defeat"? Really?
Turkey also made a killing. It’s not only the deal with Gazprom; Moscow will build no less than Turkey’s entire nuclear industry, and there will be increased soft power interaction (more trade and tourism). Most of all, Turkey is now increasingly on the verge of becoming a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO); Moscow is actively lobbying for it.

This means Turkey acceding to a privileged position as a major hub simultaneously in the Eurasian Economic Belt and of course the Chinese New Silk Road(s). The EU blocks Turkey? Turkey looks East. That’s Eurasian integration on the move.

Washington has tried very hard to create a New Berlin Wall from the Baltics to the Black Sea to "isolate" Russia. And yet Team "Don’t Do Stupid Stuff" in Washington never saw it coming - yet another Putin judo/chess/go counterpunch applied exactly across the Black Sea.

Asia Times Online has been reporting for years how Turkey’s key strategic imperative is to configure itself as the indispensable energy crossroads from East to West - transiting everything from Iraqi oil to Caspian Sea gas. Oil from Azerbaijan already transits Turkey via the Bill Clinton/Zbig Brzezinski-propelled BTC (Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan) pipeline. Turkey would also be the crossroads if a Trans-Caspian pipeline is ever built (slim chances as it stands), pumping natural gas from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan, then transported to Turkey and finally Europe.

So what Putin’s judo/chess/go counterpunch accomplished with a single move is to have stupid EU sanctions once again hurt the EU. The German economy is already hurting badly because of lost Russia business.

The EC brilliant "strategy" revolves around the EU’s Third Energy Package, which requires that pipelines and the natural gas flowing inside them must be owned by separate companies. The target of this package has always been Gazprom - which owns pipelines in many Central and Eastern European nations. The target within the target has always been South Stream.

Now it’s up to Bulgaria and Hungary, which have always fought the EC "strategy", to explain the fiasco to their own populations, and to keep pressing Brussels; after all they are bound to lose a fortune, not to mention get no gas, with South Stream out of the picture. Bulgaria alone reportedly has lost more than 6,000 new jobs and over $3 billion of investment due to the loss of South Stream.

So here’s the bottom line; Russia sells even more gas - to Turkey; Turkey gets much-needed gas with a cool discount; and the EU, pressured by the Empire of Chaos, is reduced to dance, dance, dance like a bunch of headless chickens in dark Brussels corridors wondering what hit them. And while the Atlanticists are back to default mode - cooking up yet more sanctions - Russia is set to keep buying more and more gold.

Watch those spears
This is not the endgame - far from it. In the near future, many variables will intersect.

Ankara’s game may change - but that’s far from a given. President Recep Erdogan - the Sultan of Constantinople - has certainly identified a rival, Caliph Ibrahim of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh fame, trying to steal his mojo. Thus the sultan may flirt with mollifying his neo-Ottoman dreams and contemplate steering Turkey back to its previously ditched "zero problems with our neighbors" foreign policy doctrine.

Not so fast. Erdogan’s game so far was the same as that of the House of Saud and Qatar's House of Thani; get rid of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to allow an oil pipeline from Saudi Arabia and a gas pipeline from the South Pars/North Dome mega-field in Qatar. This pipeline would be Qatar-Iraq-Syria-Turkey, rivaling the already proposed, $10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline. Final customers: the EU, of course, desperate in its "escape from Gazprom" offensive.

So what now? Will Erdogan abandon his "Assad must go" obsession? It’s too early to tell. The Turkish Foreign Ministry is spinning to the media that Washington and Ankara are about to agree on a no-fly zone along the Turkish-Syria border - even as the White House, earlier this week, insisted the idea had been scrapped.

The House of Saud is like a camel lost in the Arctic. The House of Saud’s lethal game in Syria always boiled down to regime change so that the Saudi-sponsored oil pipeline from Syria to Turkey might be built. Now the Saudis see Russia about to supply all of Turkey’s energy needs - and still be positioned to sell more gas to the EU in the near future. And Assad still won’t go.

But it is US neo-cons who are sharpening their poisonous spears with gusto. As soon as early 2015 there may be a Ukrainian Freedom Act in the US House of Representatives. Translation: Ukraine being dubbed a "major US non-NATO ally", which means, in practice, a virtual NATO annexation. Next step: more turbo-charged neo-con provocation of Russia.

A possible scenario is vassal/puppies such as Romania or Bulgaria, pressed by Washington, deciding to allow full access of NATO vessels into the Black Sea. Who cares that this would violate current Black Sea agreements that affect both Russia and Turkey?

And then there’s a dangerous Rumsfeldian "known unknown": how the fragile Balkans will feel subordinated to the whims of Ankara. As much as Brussels keeps Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia in a strait jacket, in energy terms they will start depending on Turkey’s goodwill.

For the moment, let’s appreciate the magnitude of the geopolitical shockwaves after Putin’s latest judo/chess/go combo. And get ready for another chapter of Russia’s "pivoting across Eurasia". Putin hits Delhi next weekend. Expect another geopolitical bombshell.

Russia, Turkey pivot across Eurasia

NEW DELHI, December 11 (Sputnik) – Russia and India have agreed on the construction of at least 12 new nuclear energy blocks within the next 20 years to include two new blocks for the existing Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in India’s southern tip in 2016, Russia’s Rosatom head Sergei Kiriyenko said Thursday.

"This morning a general framework agreement was signed on the construction and equipment delivery for the third and fourth blocks of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant at the present site. Cement foundations [for the new blocks] will be poured in the beginning of 2016," Kiriyenko said.

India and Russia also agreed on a long-term project to build at least 12 more energy blocks over the next two decades.

“Today we will sign a strategic document that foresees the construction of no less than 12 energy blocks over the next 20 years, or in other words this would be no less than two nuclear energy facilities,” Kiriyenko added.

However, the forecast for GDP growth for the current year improved to 0.6% from 0.3%, and in 2017 is expected a recovery in economic activity, the Central Bank said in a statement.

MOSCOW, December 11 - RIA Novosti. The Bank of Russia worsened GDP growth forecast for 2015-2016 - the new regulator assessment they will be close to zero, and a recovery in economic activity is expected only in 2017, the Central Bank said in a statement after a meeting of the Board of Directors .

However, the forecast for GDP growth for the current year improved to 0.6% from 0.3%, now it coincides with the forecast of Economic Development.

Earlier, the Central Bank in the base case scenario of macroeconomic development proceeded from the fact that in 2015 Russia's GDP will show zero momentum in 2016 will grow by 0.1% in 2017 - 1.6%.

"In the years 2015-2016 will be close to zero annual growth rate of GDP. In terms of conservation restrictions on access to international capital markets for Russian companies and relatively low energy prices will continue to decline in investment in fixed assets", - stated in the release. Ministry of Economic Development in the updated forecast expects a fall in GDP in 2015 to 0.8%.

In addition, consumer activity remains weak, according to the Central Bank. "At the same time to change the exchange rate mechanism will create the preconditions for a more rapid adaptation of the Russian economy to changes in external conditions. In 2017, the expected slight recovery in economic activity, which will contribute to the development of import-substituting industries and increasing non-oil exports," - believe the Bank of Russia.

NEW DELHI, December 11. /TASS/. A ten-year portfolio of Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom’s export orders has made $100.3 billion, Rosatom chief Sergey Kiriyenko told reporters on Thursday.

“With due account of the deal inked with Hungary, the current ten-year portfolio of guaranteed revenues has made $100.3 billion,” he said, noting that the portfolio envisages construction of 27 nuclear power units.

In the baseline scenario, the current account balance in 2015 will amount to $ 56 billion, which is less than the possible outflow of capital, which is estimated to 120 billion dollars, said the head of the Central Bank Nabiullina.

MOSCOW, Dec 11 - RIA Novosti. The Bank of Russia raised its forecast for capital outflows in 2015 to $ 120 billion to 99 billion; the same value of the outflow expected in the stress scenario, the head of the Central Bank Nabiullina.

"In the baseline scenario, the current account balance in 2015 will amount to $ 56 billion, which is less than the possible outflow of capital, which we estimate to $ 120 billion," - said Nabiullina during a press conference after a meeting of the Board of Directors of the regulator.

MOSCOW, December 11 - RIA Novosti. Corporate borrowers must pay to the Russian Federation on foreign debt in 2015, $ 120 billion, including banks - $ 42 billion, said the head of the Bank of Russia Nabiullina.

"The amount of future payments on foreign debt next year will be about $ 120 billion. Of this amount, payments on debt of the banking sector amounted to $ 42 billion, including interest payments. Payments for the debts of non-financial sector in the next year will amount to $ 77 billion, including interest also" - she said at a press conference after a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank.

Hannibal Barca wrote:No, I was right boy! You (plural) were panicking like little girls!