Russian Economy General News: #9

Hole wrote:Sputnik:
Revenues from oil and gas will grow enormously in 2018.

Budget surplus of 440 Billion rubles. 0,4% of GDP.


On the german state tv they still keep talking about "Putins empty pockets".  

Hole wrote:Sputnik:
On the german state tv they still keep talking about "Putins empty pockets".  

Kimppis wrote:
They are probably underestimating that surplus at this rate...

Yeah, and Russia was going to "run out of" "money"... I think by 2016?
Wasn't the Dark Lord supposed to be the richest person in the world as well just recently according to Western press? Was it 200 billion USD or 200 trillion?

Hole wrote:Sputnik:
Revenues from oil and gas will grow enormously in 2018.

Budget surplus of 440 Billion rubles. 0,4% of GDP.


On the german state tv they still keep talking about "Putins empty pockets".  

franco wrote:

Kimppis wrote:Russia's federal budget is still based on an oil price of $40 while Brent is almost $80 per barrel and ruble is still weak.

And Trump accused both the Russians and Chinese of keeping their currencies devalued on purpose.  

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The total public debt of the Russian Federation as of January 1 stands at 33 percent of the country's GDP, which represents a 7 percent year-on-year decrease, the Russian Central Bank said in its annual report for 2017, released on Friday, noting this was considered a moderate debt burden.

"As of January 1, 2018 the debt burden on the Russian economy remained moderate: the debt-to-GDP ratio amounted to 33 percent (in early 2017 — 40 percent)," the annual report said.

According to the report, a large share of Russian external debt obligations (86.5 percent of the total external debt) accounted for the private sector and totalled $448.6 billion.

Meanwhile, the external debt of government bodies and the Central Bank reached $70.3 billion in 2017, of which $14.5 billion was debt belonging to the Central Bank.The repayment and servicing of the external debt of government bodies rose to $4.4 billion. In general, the total debt increased by $16.7 billion to $55.6 billion, the report indicated.

"The eternal debt obligations of the Russian federal subjects have hardly changed and amounted to $200 million," the report read further.

The Russian ruble-denominated external debt corresponds to $137.4 billion, while the dollar-denominated portion of the debt totals $381.4 billion.

kvs wrote:

Deutschland is just another fiat bubble economy with a debt almost the same size as its GDP.   It is in no position to
diss Russia's finances.   Since the Russian government basically has no debt of any size worthy of discussion, has been
running a deficit much less than routinely found in the UK (for example), and sits on a vast pool of resource wealth it
actually has a massive net worth.   Its pockets are bursting at the seams with gold and diamonds.    Real wealth and
not fake paper con-artistry.  

Austin wrote:Sanctioning Russian sovereign debt

http://www.intellinews.com/sanctioning-russian-sovereign-debt-140709/

The finance ministry will have to issue some bonds especially if Russia suffers another oil price shock, but economists say that there is plenty of money inside the country to cover a lot of bond issues.
The biggest pool of money is the RUB25 trillion of retail deposits with Russian banks – well over twenty times the finance ministry’s annual OFZ borrowing plans.

Hole wrote:Remember Gaddhafi? They claimed he had hundred billion or more, because the central bank of Libya had that much money! There are real geniuses in the west.

Germany got 2,2% growth last year. Thanks to the ECB and her 0% interest rate, cheap labour from Romania and Bulgaria and the euro being low thanks to Greece, Spain and so on. The media celebrated it like nuts.

franco wrote:

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

Germany
I am afraid I cannot agree with you. Germany is nowhere near bubble economy.  Germany has strong industry,with high percentage of hi-tech products. As for manufacturing: Robot saturation comparing to Russia is 100xtimes more as per 2016. Its GDP/debt is around 60%, GDP/R&D ~3%. One of healthiest I'd say

https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/robot-density-rises-globally.

Russia
Very true,improbable amount of resources, decent level of population, very decent level of mathematical education but it still has to be made an effective money making machine. Imagine potential vs kinetic energy. My understanding of Putin's policy for next term is make as much as possible this potential "kinetic"

This is the biggest anglo-saxon nightmare... an alliance between Russia and Germany.

kvs wrote:
Germany is a bubble GDP by definition.   Just because it exports a lot does not negate zero prime rate bubble inflation.   A financial bubble
is a financial bubble regardless of all other factors

Hole wrote:To Gunship: The Libyan state had billions in the west, not Gaddhafi personaly.

Hole wrote: To Austin: The 20 Trillion isn´t the whole number. There is more debt, much more liabilities. All pension funds of the individual states lost a lot of money in the last ten years. There are gigantic gaps between the available money and the amount they will have to spend for their members (teachers, police men and so on).

franco wrote:
This is the biggest anglo-saxon nightmare... an alliance between Russia and Germany.

Austin wrote:List of Countries by Projected GDP International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook (April - 2018

http://statisticstimes.com/economy/countries-by-projected-gdp.php

They list PPP GDP  for Russia of 4,168.884 USD for 2018 and projected for 2023 @ 4,933

Why such small gain in all these years for PPP ?

andalusia wrote:Why doesn't Russia make an attempt to issue their currency interest free like America or Nationalist Socialist Germany once did?

I would like to know what do people on this forum think about the slogan "In God We Trust" that appears on US money as a response to godless Communism during the 1950s? https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/05/16/communism-atheism-and-placing-in-god-we-trust-on-the-u-s-dollar/

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

Austin wrote:List of Countries by Projected GDP International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook (April - 2018

http://statisticstimes.com/economy/countries-by-projected-gdp.php

They list PPP GDP  for Russia of 4,168.884 USD for 2018 and projected for 2023 @ 4,933

Why such small gain in all these years for PPP ?

Less growth than Germany and on level of riddling Japan  I'd say simple extrapolation with ~ +2,8% growth (PPP).  If Putin manages force  govt to make break through then with ~5,4 trillions GDP would be on 5th place.

andalusia wrote:Why doesn't Russia make an attempt to issue their currency interest free like America or Nationalist Socialist Germany once did?

ekhm why Russian should copy nazi Germany? in any respect? apart from moral side so where is this nazi Germany now?

Did you read the two links I posted? Germany was able to recover from the Depression without a need for the international bankers. They financed their infrastructure by issuing its own money without borrowing. That is what Russia should do.

I would like to know what do people on this forum think about the slogan "In God We Trust" that appears on US money as a response to godless Communism during the 1950s? https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/05/16/communism-atheism-and-placing-in-god-we-trust-on-the-u-s-dollar/

no idea, but  to me communists were much closer to God than USA any time in its history.

andalusia wrote:The communists did ban religion during the rule of the Soviet Union and was officially an atheist state.

Megafon will receive $ 247.5 million for shares of Mail.ru Group within the framework of creation of a joint venture with partners

MOSCOW, May 8. / TASS /. Operator Megafon creates a joint venture for the development of digital services and projects in the digital economy with Gazprombank, Rostekh and its controlling shareholder USM Holdings Alisher Usmanov.

The operator said that it transfers to the joint venture 11.5 million shares of Mail.ru Group class A worth $ 450 million. The package represents 5.23% of the economic stake in the company, or 58.87% of the vote. Now Megafon owns 15.2% of the economic share of Mail.ru Group, or 63.8% of voting shares.

In return, Megafon will receive $ 247.5 million before taxes - these funds will help reduce the operator's debt burden. As of the end of 2017, MegaFon's net debt in the telecom segment was 234.5 billion rubles.

The price of the transaction assumes a premium to the market price of Mail.ru Group securities as of May 4, 2018 at a rate of 29% - these terms are more favorable than in the framework of the deal to purchase a stake in Mail.ru Group in February 2017 by Megafon.

How and when will it be
The joint venture will be established on the basis of MF Technology JSC (ITF). Now this structure belongs to the 100% subsidiary of Megafon Lefbord Investment Limited.

"As part of the deal, Gazprombank will acquire a 35% stake in Leftbord from the ITF, USM - 9%, and Rostek - 11%." As a result of the transaction, Lefbord still has a 45% stake in the deal, which was valued at $ 450 million. " - said in the statement of the operator.

After the deal is closed, MegaFon owns 21.94 million common shares, which account for 10% of Mail.ru Group's economic share. "At present, Megafon does not plan to sell this stake," the operator said.

Executive director of "Megafon" Gevorg Vermishyan told TASS that the company plans to close the deal in May. "We received a decision of the board of directors of Megafon yesterday, and in May we plan to close the deal," he said.

The profit of 12 billion rubles
According to Vermishyan, "Megafon" estimates the cash profit from investments in Mail.ru Group of 12 billion rubles. "The total package of 58.87% of the voting shares of Mail.ru Group is estimated at $ 450 million. For us, this corresponds to a cash investment profit of about 12 billion rubles," he said.

The valuation of the $ 450mn package corresponds to approximately $ 39 per share, while Megafon bought Mail.ru Group shares at $ 22 per share, Vermishyan explained. "The difference between the price of today's valuation and the price of our entry - this is the money profit," he added. For 63.8% of the voting shares of Mail.ru Group, Megafon paid $ 740 million.

USM Holdings manages the assets of entrepreneur Alisher Usmanov. At the moment, the group is the main shareholder of Megafon and controls 56.32% of the operator's shares. Shares Mail.ru Group last year, "Megafon" bought from the structures of Usmanov.

Big plans
The joint venture will unite the expertise of the leaders of telecommunications, IT business, financial services and high-tech industries - to enter new markets and create industrial solutions, the report said.

Together with partners, Megafon plans to implement a number of projects, among them the creation of software products aimed at digitizing the work of large companies and developing solutions based on the blockbuster.

Rostekh, who is one of the key participants in the direction "Formation of research competencies and technological reserves" of the program "Digital Economy", will use its experience in the field of development and implementation of digital technologies, Tass learned from the press service of the state corporation.

"The most important project, already underway, is the creation of a digital financial platform on the basis of which the parties will develop high-tech services: payment, credit and other digital products." For this purpose, Megafon, Mail.ru Group, USM and Gazprombank plan to create a company Digital JV (DJV), "the report said.

The plans are also to form a joint investment fund for investments in promising technology companies.

Since the acquisition of the stake in the Mail.ru Group in February 2017, the operator has sought to extract synergies from this partnership, said the executive director of Megafon. "We did something very well, something did not work out - for example, we decided to close a project like VK Mobile, but now we see that synergies at the interface of industries in a broader range of participants can bring significantly more serious benefits and growth of shareholder value, "Vermishyan said.

"Megafon" "seeks to play a leading role in the digital economy of Russia," Megafon reported referring to the company's CEO Sergei Soldatenkov. "Today, the efforts of the leaders of telecommunication, high-tech and financial markets are united all over the world to create new digital products and services, in this connection we join forces with the leading Russian players of these markets to build a digital bank and more active work in the corporate segment," he said. he.

Soldatenkov believes that the partnership will allow Megafon to participate in more projects and ensure the operator's exit into the new growing digital economy markets.

The goal of the partners is to create a unique platform that will not only generate new products, but an entire ecosystem based on fundamentally new digital financial instruments, USM reported referring to the head of USM Management, Ivan Streshinsky. The parties have experience of successful cooperation and a common view on the future of the digital industry, he said.