Belarus tests new BUK missile system as a low-key arms race in Eastern Europe gathers momentum
CSTO states express serious concern over terrorist threat in Afghanistan
Armenia refuses to host Eurasian Economic Union summit
COMMENT: Trump 2.0 could be a blessing for Belarus
Tusk says he will protect broadcasters TVN and Polsat from hostile takeovers
Russia hopes for deal on bases in Syria
US finally approves $20bn contribution to the G7's $50bn Ukraine loan
Ukraine's international reserves rise as financial aid ensures budget stability
Moscow is “close to achieving all its war goals", says Russian spy chief
For the Baltic states, bigger defence spending may never be enough
Poor market conditions start to put Emerging Europe IPOs on hold
Gas prices rising as EU storage tanks empty faster than usual
Tusk calls for unity against Russia, proposes Baltic Sea policing mission
Czechs choose the nuclear option
Czech inflation stays at 2.8% in November
Czech unemployment inches upwards to 3.9% in November
Czech industrial production falls by 2.1% y/y in October
North Macedonia secures second €500mn loan from Hungary to repay 2018 Eurobond
Shares in Hungary’s 4iG skyrocket amid speculation over SpaceX collaboration
Hungary's inflation accelerates to 3.7% in November
Poland’s Orlen ditches largest petrochemical project in Europe
Poland's PragmaGO acquires Romanian digital factoring company Telecredit
Polish central bank may delay rate cuts to next autumn, Glapiński says
Slovak industry maintains growth of 1.3% y/y in October
COMMENT: European countries plan hydrogen import infrastructure to achieve climate goals
Slovak coalition wobbles but will it fall down?
Czechia to open oil reserves after Russia halts Druzhba pipeline flows
Emerging Europe winemakers sparkle as global wine production declines
EBRD warns of risks for emerging markets pursuing industrial policies
COMMENT: The EU’s Internal Security Framework is unfit for Cold War 2.0
Albanian police use tear gas to disperse anti-government protesters
Albania considers TikTok, Snapchat ban after fatal school stabbing
Watchdog warns Western Balkan banks are conduits for money laundering
Kosovan PM’s visit leads to new rift in Bosnia
Serbia faces backlash over controversial foreign agents bill
EU admits Bulgaria, Romania to full Schengen membership
Bulgaria’s central bank slams spending hike in 2025 budget
Bulgaria threatens to cut transit of Russian gas to Serbia
Bulgarian prosecutors target ex-PM Petkov, putting coalition talks at risk
Croatian PM survives no-confidence motion over healthcare scandal
Croatian government faces no-confidence vote over healthcare scandal
Eight arrested over terrorist attack on water canal in Kosovo
Explosion on Zubin Potok canal escalates tensions between Kosovo and Serbia
Kosovo takes first steps towards establishing defence industry
Rising inflation may force Moldova's central bank to reconsider its expansionary monetary policy
Bucharest Stock Exchange mulls expansion in Moldova
Moldova's separatist Transnistria region prepares for the end of free Russian gas
Moldovan PM sacks energy minister, declares state of emergency in energy sector
Montenegro probes suspected plot to assassinate President Milatovic
North Macedonia’s FX reserves soar 24.1% y/y at end-November
Political tensions rise in North Macedonia after unrest on Albanian Flag Day
North Macedonia gets new eco-bus fleet as fuel crisis causes transport chaos in capital
BCR’s venture capital company invests in SaaS platform FieldOS
Romania’s trade deficit reaches new record in October
Serbia signs €720mn contract with PowerChina on first phase of Belgrade metro
Serbian president says he's not Assad and he's not leaving
Serbia allocates €1bn in first-ever green budget for 2025
US “scrambles” to respond to Turkish-backed Syria offensive targeting partner force Kurds
Qatar-Turkey-Europe gas pipeline ambition could be back on following fall of Assad
ISTANBUL BLOG: After “conquering” Damascus, Erdogan turns his eye to the Kurds
SYRIA BLOG: Putin joins George W Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” club
INTERVIEW: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank financing Central Asia’s green future
Award seen as Nobel Prize for human rights won by Kabul women’s rights activist and jailed Tajik lawyer
PANNIER: Central Asia faces tough race against clock to prevent water crisis
Corruption probe launched into Armenian satellite project
Several top Armenian officials resign amid political shake-up
COMMENT: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and China accelerate efforts to expand the Middle Corridor
Azerbaijan continues crackdown on independent media
Azerbaijan rights defender detained ahead of US award ceremony
Prolonged protests and backtrack on EU accession threaten Georgia’s economic stability
INTERVIEW: Giorgi Gakharia, Georgian opposition leader
Georgian demonstrators mobilise against “titushky” thugs
Masked 'titushky' thugs target journalists and opposition members in Tbilisi
Growth returned to Kazakhstan service sector in November, PMI shows
Kazakh manufacturing sector sees sharp improvement in November, PMI data shows
Decades-old Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan border dispute could be over
Kyrgyzstan: MPs seem willing to give police a free hand
Hit indirectly by sanctions, Mongolia struggles to find workarounds
HESS: Mongolia’s unique success story between rock and a hard place at risk
Mongolia copper-gold discovery hailed for “globally significant” prospects
PANNIER: Grievous blow for the Pamiris as Tajikistan ends cooperation with the Aga Khan
COP29: Central Asian states losing arable land
Iranian officials in uproar over police beatings of students in Russia
Uzbekistan’s first unicorn Uzum to launch a second funding round and fuel faster growth
Alisher Usmanov’s wealth shrinks by $7.29bn on falling markets
Russia's budget oil breakeven price world’s second lowest as oil revenues recover
Southeast European countries look to Algeria to diversify energy supplies
Slovenia turns back to Algerian gas after flirtation with Russian supplies
“Silent demise” of world’s vast rangelands threatens food supply of billions, warns UNCCD report
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Global warming will increase crop yields in Global North, but reduce them in Global South
Hundreds of millions on verge of starvation, billions more undernourished as Climate Crisis droughts take their toll
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Global access to energy starts to fall for the first time in a decade, says IEA
Saudi Arabia hosts kingdom's first Africa summit, to boost ties, promote stability
Putin at 2023 Africa-Russia summit: Wiping debts, donating grain and boosting co-operation
EBRD 2023: Bank to expand into the whole of Africa plus Iraq
Botswana throws the diamond industry a lifeline
Nelson Mandela worried about natural diamonds, Leonardo di Caprio defended them, makers of lab-grown stones demonise them
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Russia’s Rosatom to support nuclear projects across Africa at AEW2024
JPMorgan, Chase and HSBC reportedly unwittingly processed payments for Wagner warlord Prigozhin
Burkina Faso the latest African country to enter nuclear power plant construction talks with Russia
IMF: China’s slowdown will hit sub-Saharan growth
Moscow unlikely to give up Niger toehold as threat of ECOWAS military action looms
Overcoming insecurity to unlock the Central African Republic’s mineral riches
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Rain, rain go away
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EM winners and losers from the global green transformation
Russia blocks UN Security Council resolution on Sudan humanitarian crisis
G20 summit wraps up with a joint statement strong on sentiment, but short on specifics
Malaysia seeks BRICS membership
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How France is losing Africa
Gabon coup attempt after the re-election of President Ali Bongo
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The West is bleeding the Global South of wealth thanks to massive wage inequality, says study
Kenya’s untapped mineral wealth holds the promise of economic transformation
US adds 17 Liberian-flagged bulk carriers and oil tankers to Russian sanctions-busting blacklist
Panama and Liberia vying for largest maritime registry
Russia, facing loss of Syrian base for Africa operations, seen turning to war-torn Sudan or divided Libya
Libya’s mineral riches: unlocking a future beyond oil
EBRD announces profit of €2.1bn in 2023
Ukraine claims it was behind massacre of Wagner Group mercenaries in Mali
Can Morocco's phosphate wealth put it at the centre of the global battery supply chain?
Hajj aftermath: deaths, disappearances and detentions spark investigations across world
Sri Lanka's LTL Holdings targets African power sector
Russia's nuclear diplomacy binding emerging markets to the Kremlin
Can Niger's military junta seize the country's uranium opportunity?
Disaster season: heat waves sweep the world – in charts and maps
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Niger and beyond: Francophone credit delivers coup de grâce
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Trump threatens BRICS with tariffs if they dump the dollar
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SITREP: Middle East rapidly destabilised by a week of missile strikes
Colombian mercenaries trapped in Sudan’s conflict
Air France diverts Red Sea flights after crew spots 'luminous object'
COMMENT: Tunisia on the brink of collapse
Tunisian President Kais Saied re-elected for second term
WHO declares "global public health emergency" owing to mpox outbreak in Central Africa, new virus strain
Climate crisis-driven global food security deteriorated between 2019 and 2022 and is even affecting the US
South Korea’s won slides as martial law crisis sparks market turmoil
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Russia to mine Bitcoin in BRICS countries
China unveils $71bn swap facility to revitalise flagging economy
Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway makes waves with $1.9bn yen bond sale
Uzbekistan joins Kyrgyzstan in committing to October start on China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway construction
INTERVIEW: Jeet Chandan, co-founder of Indian investment platform BizDateUp
BCPG to invest $945mn in power projects, prioritising clean energy
Vietnam faces challenges in meeting carbon emission targets
Where does nuclear power-use stand in post-COP29 Asia?
Pakistan could quit TAPI as India now “extremely lukewarm” on gas pipeline project, says report
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Trump vows to block Nippon Steel's $14bn bid for US Steel
China dismisses Trump's tariff threat, warns of 'no winners' in trade war
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For Russia, 2017 marked a return to economic growth after oil price fluctuations and geopolitical tensions, thanks in part to a landmark deal between Moscow and Opec that cuts oil production through to the end of 2018. By driving Brent futures to their highest level in more than two years and pushing oil inventories towards their five-year averages, Russia and its fellow oil producers have secured higher baseline prices.
Critically, Moscow now enjoys a window of stability – which should now be used to recalibrate domestic markets and further reforms. By diversifying the economy and reducing dependence on energy revenues, Russian economic planners should look to inoculate the country against a repeat of recent economic woes.
They clearly know this break from the roller coaster can’t be taken for granted. Growth slowed more than forecast in the third quarter of 2017, and central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina has warned even $100 a barrel oil prices can’t push medium-term growth past 2% without an overhaul of the economy. Former finance minister Alexei Kudrin has consistently highlighted structural drags on the economy, stemming from both the bureaucracy and the judiciary; Kudrin has put forward recommendations that reformers should take into account if Russia’s economy is to avert stagnation.
At least one of Russia’s key counterparts in the production cut deal has already recognized the urgency of diversifying its own economy. Saudi Arabia, which saw its budget deficit balloon to 15% of GDP and its reserves drained during the oil crash, has begun enacting sweeping reforms within the framework of an ambitious Vision 2030 plan. The Saudis, led by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, have spent the past two years enacting major reforms to shift the Saudi economy away from its reliance on petrodollars.
That programme holds many lessons that Russia could take to heart. A major component of Vision 2030 involves using the expected proceeds of a sale of 5% of “crown jewel” and state-owned oil company Aramco to inject capital into Saudi Arabia’s own sovereign wealth fund. The new capital is largely destined for the tech sector, via partnerships with SoftBank and investments in companies like Uber. One of the key goals of Vision 2030 is sending a message Russia also wants to get across to foreign investors and partners – namely, that “the kingdom is open for business.”
To deliver that message, Bin Salman himself is actively undertaking commercial diplomacy with high-profile upcoming visits to Western partners in London and Paris. His government is simultaneously taking a number of steps to increase investor confidence. The most prominent include breaking down restrictions on female participation in economic life, streamlining customs and visa requirements, and opening up its stock market to outside investment.
Similar business-minded reforms would be well received in Russia. Unlike oil prices and Western sanctions, the Russian government has a great deal of control over many of foreign investors’ most frequent demands – policy stability, a simplified, less bureaucratic business environment and the rule of law.
The Russian banking sector, for one, has already started taking important steps towards reform. Over the last four years, more than 350 highly-indebted “zombie” banks have been removed from the market, while Otkritie, a high-profile lender set up by four billionaires, was bailed out by the state after it went belly up in September.
While sceptics point out that the “clean-up” has increased state influence over the banking sector, it has also removed important risks from the market. Many of the shuttered financial institutions did not respect anti-corruption safeguards and primarily served the interests of wealthy individuals who created private banks to enrich themselves and bankroll their own businesses. Even those banks not implicated in money laundering often pursued bad business strategies, leaving themselves open to crumbling at the slightest macroeconomic shock.
The restructuring of the banking sector is just one of many initiatives that can promote greater transparency in the Russian economy. Among Russia’s top companies, a Transparency International report released in the past few weeks has found a few standout examples of good governance. Perhaps the most prominent is Sberbank in the financial sector, which tied food distributor Magnit for first place and has become a poster child for successful renewal under CEO and former trade minister Herman Gref. The Sberbank chief also happens to be a key liberal voice advocating for the types of economic reforms proposed by finance minister Alexei Kudrin.
In stark contrast, Transparency also found quite a few cases of lagging standards and lack of safeguards. The group’s primary criteria included whether the companies provided publicly available information on anti-corruption measures, whether they were transparent in terms of their holdings, and whether they divulged key financial data in on a “country-by-country basis.” The group gave low scores to 84% of Russia’s top 200 companies, with the median score only coming out to 2.6 out of 10.
With growing calls for diversification away from oil and gas, Russia’s investment climate should increasingly shift in a direction that helps bring back foreign direct investment from potential partners in Europe. To speed that process along, the government should move to tackle overarching issues in the judiciary and public procurement while encouraging the private sector as a whole to implement international standards. Moscow, like Riyadh, knows it’s time to lay the foundations of a post-oil future while the energy markets give it room to work.
Christopher Stakhovsky is an independent European energy policy consultant based in Paris.
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