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Uzbekistan’s president Shavkat Mirziyoyev wins re-election with over 90% of vote

Incumbent swept the board, but the race was largely uncontested.

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BALKAN BLOG: New COVID certificate rules cause rush on vaccinations in Bulgaria

The number of daily vaccinations nearly tripled to 30,000 after caretaker Health Minister Stoycho Katsarov said only people with green COVID-19 certificates can go to pubs, night clubs, restaurants and shopping malls.

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Russia's Renaissance Insurance raises $250mn in IPO

Russian insurance company Renaissance Insurance Group announced the final price for its initial public offering (IPO) on Moscow Exchange of RUB120 ($1.69) per ordinary shares and completed its IPO on October 21.

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Erdogan goes high-voltage with another rate cut

Wayward monetary policy dives deeper into uncharted territory. Turkey may be in for a “hardcore” crisis. The Erdogan succession talk is growing louder.

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Balkan Stream countries hope to avoid worst of international gas crisis

While the debate rages over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a separate pipeline system carrying Russian gas to Southeast Europe has been quietly opened over the last few years, which enables the countries on its route to avoid the worst of the gas crisis

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wiiw hikes 2021 CEE growth forecast to 5.4%

Growth is predicted to fall to 3.7% in 2022 and 3.5% in 2023 because of base effects, monetary tightening and more significant external headwinds.

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Russia’s coronavirus spike threatens the whole region

Vaccine scepticism means just under a third of the Russian population is vaccinated and the government admitted last week that it had “lost the information campaign” to persuade its people to take the pandemic seriously.

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Poland and the EU ratchet up judicial dispute

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki defends Polish position in European Parliament as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warns that the EU will not hesitate to withhold funding.

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Erdogan orders 10 western ambassadors declared persona non grata after ‘impudent’ Kavala release call

Rare 'rat king' found in Estonia

Romania’s president appoints General Nicolae Ciuca as second PM-designate

Erdogan orders 10 western ambassadors declared persona non grata after ‘impudent’ Kavala release call

Move may prove to be nothing more than rhetoric. An election is not far off and Erdogan, under pressure on many fronts, is floundering in the opinion polls.

Latest Updates

News

Country nevertheless hasn’t achieved herd immunity as it faces sixth COVID-19 wave driven by delta variant, it adds.

Russian online bank Tinkoff has launched an e-commerce venture. The new platform, a constellation of services and tools designed to help entrepreneurs. To manage it the bank has hired Ilya Kretov, formerly eBay’s CEO for Global Emerging Markets.

Only half the population has been vaccinated and the least vaccinated regions also happen to be the most pro-government.

Leading Russian metallurgical company Metalloinvest signed off on a deal with a consortium of companies to build the world’s biggest hot briquetted iron plant, the preferred form of iron from which high quality steel can be produced.

USR's leader cabinet failed to secure support from any other party and was only backed by 88 MPs out of a total of 466.

Tech

Delimobil Holding SA, a Luxembourg-registered, Moscow-based car-sharing company, filed for listing on the New York Stock Exchange on October 8.

GitLab (‘GTLB’), a San Francisco-based open-source software startup founded by Ukrainian entrepreneur Dmitry Zaporozhets and Dutch-born Sid Sijbrandij, made its debut on the Nasdaq at a valuation of $11bn on October 14.

Russia’s ultrafast grocery delivery service Yango Deli that can get goods to customers in under 15 minutes has launched in London, the company said in a press release on October 14.

Mail.ru Group’s appetite for acquisitions in the gaming space was confirmed again today as My.Games Venture Capital (MGVC), the investment arm of its subsidiary My.Games, announced minority investments in three game studios.

Dsight, a Moscow-based business intelligence company with a focus on investment, has just released the English version of its Russian venture report covering the first half of 2021.

Opinion

It’s one thing encountering fakes and disinformation online, it’s quite another when someone fabricates a fake that strives to destroy your own life and career. This is what has just happened to me – a journalist with 20-year experience.

Several years ago, a young deputy minister started his description about the Russian economy by saying: "The good news about the economy is that it is stable.” After a brief pause, he added: "The bad news about the economy is that it is stable."

Recurring import bans by the Russian agricultural watchdog attest to a problem with Moscow’s idea of free trade.

Neighbouring markets could be tapped as part of the global refugee fundraising effort, and bridge the tens of billions of dollars annual gap in UN appeals.

The Russian government approved a list of 42 strategic initiatives for socio-economic development of the country on October 7. Their aim, according to the official announcement, is “to improve people’s quality of life."

Data

Oil output fell 3.4% y/y but ore mining grew 15%.

Unemployment down by 0.28 percentage points month-on-month.

Data shows the strength of Polish industry and its resilience to bottlenecks in the supply of raw materials and intermediate goods.

Ukraine’s real GDP increased 2.9% y/y in 8M21, accelerating from a 2.1% y/y growth in 7M21.

Inflation rises to 4.8% y/y in August, after the CPI rose by 3.7% year-on-year in July.

Features

Plans to further boost the non-extractive sector and make the country’s economy greener are priorities, development bank’s country head Hannes Takacs tells bne IntelliNews.

In the first half of 2021, the Russian economy was firing on all cylinders. Commodity prices were rising, employment was remarkably high, and real wages were growing. Now it's slowing and some worry the economy is losing what little momentum it had.

The Russian and Ukrainian pavilions at the Dubai Expo 2020 opened on October 1 to showcase the two countries to the rest of the world.

Financial results from the first half of 2021 show that Russian retailers are chipping away at the market share of international rivals within the Russian Federation. This comes as a domestic and global retail boom is shaking up the sector.

Former Finance Minister and Audit Chamber head Alexei Kudrin poured cold water over the government’s new budget, saying in a report the assumptions are overly optimistic and the forecast 3% growth for this year is “nowhere to be seen.”

Blogs

Yet another late-night decree from the presidential palace.

Eurasianet’s weekly Turkmenistan briefing: Berdimuhamedov goes travelling and lectures the WHO, while YouTube bows to Turkmen censors and takes down Eurasianet’s channel.

Rather than pay steep prices, many motorists in Uzbekistan hook up dangerous gas cylinders to their vehicles to access cheaper fuel. The “liberalised market” is not working for them.

Both are dab hands at bagging indirect taxes.

The Czech election is so tight that the Pandora Papers scandal could make the difference between the two opposition coalitions having the votes to form a government together or not.

bneGREEN

G7 countries have the potential to reach net zero in the power generation sector by 2035 and spur decarbonisation in other economies and sectors.

The energy transition provides a great opportunity for the metals industry. Investment in clean energy technologies will boost metals demand. However, while the sector will play a crucial role, it will need to address its own emissions.

Sibur will establish a Low Carbon Emitting Technologies pact with leading international chemical companies and the World Economic Forum to help coordinate climate change responses.

While the current gas crisis in the EU sees record-high wholesale gas prices, hurting consumers and causing the latest round of a supply disputes with Russia, the race to net zero by 2050 could have deeper long-term consequences for EU gas demand.

Lender BCR joins a growing number of corporate issuers of green bonds in Romania.

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