Russian Economy General News: #13

franco wrote:From January to March, 1.3 million foreigners entered Russia to work

This information is taken from FSB statistics provided by Vedomosti. It is noted that the recorded influx of migrants is more than one and a half times higher than the number of arrivals in the first quarter of last year. Over the past period, the influx of migrants amounted to about 842 thousand people.

According to  the FSB, the largest number of visitors are citizens of Uzbekistan, they arrived in the amount of almost 631 thousand. Next come the natives of Tajikistan - almost 350 thousand, Kyrgyzstan - more than 172 thousand. Armenia and Kazakhstan close the top five in terms of labor migration - from there, in total, less than 83,000 people came to Russia.

Also in 2023, citizens from far abroad visited Russia for employment, for example, from countries such as the Haitian and Dominican Republics, as well as the United Arab Emirates.

The influx of migrants can also be judged on the basis of information from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia on patents and permits for employment.

Vedomosti notes that, based on statistics, it can be concluded that the migration loss has been overcome, which has been replaced by an increase. For the first two months of this year, it amounted to almost 30 thousand people. Negative indicators of past periods were associated with the effect of coronavirus restrictive measures.

In the near future, a continued growth in migration flows to Russia is predicted due to the increase in the population of the countries of the Central Asian region and the increasingly difficult situation on the labor market there. However, natural causes, such as droughts and degradation of agricultural lands, which reduce the overall efficiency of the economy, also provoke massive displacements of the population. Read more about this in  the material Media-MIG.

https://media--mig-ru.translate.goog/indicators/s-yanvarya-po-mart-na-zarabotki-v-rossiyu-v-ehali/?utm_source=finobzor.ru&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

Hopefully, they are very careful about who they let in.

Rosstat: annual inflation in April was 2.31%, by Erdni Kagaltynov for Kommersant. 05.12.2023.

In April, price growth in Russia amounted to 0.38% (in March - 0.37%), annual inflation slowed down to 2.31% in April from 3.51% in March, follows from the data (.pdf) of Rosstat, published on website of the Ministry of Economic Development.

According to Rosstat, inflation in the food segment was 0.29% in April after 0.13% in March. The growth was caused by a sharp acceleration of inflation in the fruit and vegetable market - from 0.06% in March to 1.61% in April. For other products, growth slowed down - from 0.15% to 0.09%.

According to the statistical agency, in the segment of non-food products , the rise in prices in April remained virtually unchanged compared to March and amounted to 0.15% against 0.14%.

In the services sector , inflation slowed down from 0.97% in March to 0.79% in April, Rosstat reports. First of all, the growth of prices for tourist services slowed down. At the same time, the growth of prices for banking services and passenger transport services resumed.

The report also provides statistics on inflation for the period from 3 to 10 May. According to Rosstat, prices did not grow during the reporting period, and annual inflation amounted to 2.32%.

In the baseline scenario of the Central Bank, inflation will be 4.5–6.5% in 2023, and 4% in 2024. In the second quarter of 2023, the regulator expects inflation at 3.6% after 3.5% in the first quarter. The key rate remains at 7.5%. On May 11, the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, allowed an increase in the key rate in the event of inflation accelerating.

I am not sure this is the best place for this post, but I could not find a thread for the development and integration of the new regions like the one for Crimea.


https://topwar.ru/217365-rossijskoe-pravitelstvo-prinjalo-okonchatelnoe-reshenie-o-dalnejshej-sudbe-mariupolskoj-azovstali.html

The Russian government has made a final decision on the fate of the Mariupol Azovstal

There will be no restoration of the Mariupol Azovstal, although such an option was considered, it was recognized as unprofitable. A decision was made to build a technopark on the site of the metallurgical plant, and it is final. The plan of the technopark will be drawn up after the demining of the territory is completed, the sappers are still working.

It makes sense.
Russia already produces more than enough steel for itself.
Azovstal was technologically almost 100 years old and it was practically completely destroyed during the war.
It was in the middle of the city and the harbour and the area could be destined to a different use.
Furthermore in Mariupol there is still the even larger Illich Iron & Steel Works, which was also damaged last year, but not to the same extents.

Yandex will pro-yandex investors, by Yulia Yurasova, Dmitry Mikhailovich for Kommersant. 05.20.2023.

Vladimir Potanin and Vagit Alekperov may acquire a controlling stake in the Russian company.

Billionaires Vladimir Potanin and Vagit Alekperov are interested in buying a controlling stake in the Russian Yandex, the company is already considering the offer, Bloomberg reported. Analysts believe that the deal will be closed in late 2023 or early 2024 and could negatively affect Yandex offices abroad, since both businessmen are under sanctions.

Yandex received an offer to buy a controlling stake in the company from the owner of Interros and the head of the MMC Norilsk Nickel, Vladimir Potanin, and the founder of LUKOIL, Vagit Alekperov, on May 19, Bloomberg reported . The interlocutors of the publication estimate the Russian assets of the company at about $ 7-7.5 billion. According to agency sources, Vladimir Potanin and Vagit Alekperov expect to receive at least 51% of Yandex shares. It is specified that the board of the parent company Yandex NV located in the Netherlands will discuss this proposal next week, during a meeting in Dubai. Yandex, Interros and LUKOIL declined to comment.

At the end of November, 2022 "Yandex" announced possible changes in corporate structure. The company intended to leave only a part of the group's business, in particular, international projects in the field of cloud technologies, to the head structure of Yandex NV. Most of the group's services, including search and advertising, were planned to be given to the new group of companies.

As of May 19, 2023, the Arkady Volozh Family Trust owns 8.5% (45.1% of votes) of the capital of the Yandex NV shareholding structure (the parent company of Yandex), other directors, officers and employees own 3.2% (6 .6% of votes). Shares in free float account for 87.9% of the capital (46.5% of votes). The owners before the IPO own 0.3% of the capital (1.8% of the votes).

Earlier, The Bell (included by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in the list of foreign agents) reported, citing its sources, about the upcoming change in the corporate structure of Yandex. Allegedly, the current head of the Accounts Chamber Alexei Kudrin and Yandex NV structures will be among the shareholders of the new parent company. In December last year, Mr. Kudrin left the department and moved to Yandex as a corporate development adviser.

This year the company expects to present a plan for the separation of Russian and international assets. It was assumed that the Dutch Yandex NV, of which Arkady Volozh is a shareholder, would establish a Russian structure in which it would own a 100% stake, followed by registration in a special administrative region of Kaliningrad, RBC reported in March. According to the sources of the publication, the composition of investors has not yet been determined, but the company's managers insist on attracting private businessmen and have formed a preliminary list of those with whom they would be ready to start negotiations on entering the capital of the "Russian Yandex". Then it included Vagit Alekperov and his partner in LUKOIL Leonid Fedun, co-owner of Severstal, Nord Gold and Lenta Alexei Mordashov, as well as Vladimir Potanin and the main owner of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov.

The purchase of a controlling stake in Yandex by billionaires from the sanctions lists Vladimir Potanin and Vagit Alekperov should not affect users: most of the team and data centers are located on the territory of the Russian Federation, says Sergey Glandin, a lawyer and partner at the NSP Law Office. “The baseline scenario is the closing of the deal at the end of 2023 - the beginning of 2024, it will take time at least to go through all the approvals,” Timur Nigmatullin, senior investment consultant at Finam, believes. According to him, in Russia such transactions are concluded as part of an individual approach “based on the owner”.

The deal may affect Yandex's offices in Switzerland, the Netherlands or the Czech Republic, Mr. Glandin believes.

“By virtue of their compliance policies, Western partners and counterparties may stop working for Yandex or providing services to it as a sub-sanctioned company (according to the 50+ rule, all companies of sub-sanctioned persons are considered to be equally sub-sanctioned),” he explained.

However, investors took the news about the possible purchase of Yandex with optimism. During the trading session on the Moscow Exchange, the quotes of the company's shares grew by more than 12%, according to the results of the main trading session, the growth was 9.4%. In terms of trading volume - 13.3 billion rubles, twice as much as for Sberbank shares - Yandex shares became the absolute leader on May 19.

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5998406

Serial production of domestic ATMs launched in Rudnevo Industrial Park, 05.22.2023.

The capital group of companies BFS has launched a serial production of Russian ATMs in the Rudnevo industrial park.

The sanctions war has shown that even this purely civilian product is best made by ourselves in Russia. Recently, in the industrial park "Rudnevo" we have launched the serial production of Russian ATMs. The manufacturer is the Moscow group of companies BFS.

The production capacity of the enterprise is up to 15 thousand ATMs per year and can be doubled. This almost completely covers the needs of the Russian market. The company has already received pre-orders for 7,000 ATMs.

One of the advantages of BFS products is independence from foreign companies in terms of maintenance and software.

The brains of the ATM are the Elbrus processors from the Russian company JSC MCST. BFS, together with MCST, has developed a system unit that includes all the necessary interfaces.

Of the more than 800 ATM components, 80% are Russian-made, and this share will gradually grow.

The functionality of the devices allows you to carry out all the usual operations. ATMs can read bank or transport cards, 2D barcodes and QR codes without contact. The presence of a biometric camera will allow you to perform a number of operations without the use of cards. Thanks to the touch screen and multimedia system, using the ATM is very convenient. ATMs are equipped with an improved system of protection against fraudsters and vandals.

https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/151522/

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:

There will be no restoration of the Mariupol Azovstal, 

It makes sense.
Russia already produces more than enough steel for itself.
Azovstal was technologically almost 100 years old and it was practically completely destroyed during the war.
It was in the middle of the city and the harbour and the area could be destined to a different use.
Furthermore in Mariupol there is still the even larger Illich Iron & Steel Works, which was also damaged last year, but not to the same extents.

I was trying to get some info on both Azovstal and on the larger Ilyich steel and iron works. Both of them are extremely old and never proper modernised and both of them belonged to Akhmetov. And both of them were responsible for polluting the air, water and land around them and in the whole of Mariupol.

You can even check the online comments (before 2021) on the plant. Many people were not happy with them.
Yes they gave work to a relatively large part of the population of the city, but Russia do not need them. The best thing probably Russia could do is dismantle them, sanitize the area and maybe rebuild a new plant from scratches if needed. In the meanwhile other industries can be built in Mariupol. And maybe for the workers that used to work there either a retraining can be proposed to work on other industries or possibly a temporary relocation to other metallurgical plants in Russia while a decision is taken on the future of Ilyich plant as well.

Basically Akhmetov and the Ukrainian thieves were profiting from the plants which only worked for foreign orders, but they were very old and noone wanted to invest on them and they were extremely polluting.

Can a  less polluting metallurgical plant be built?  Probably, but it takes time and money. Can Ilyich plant be modernised without destroying it and building anew?

By the way, I was reading some articles concerning eventual shipbuilding in Mariupol. There is a ship-repairng yard and possibly other facilities can be build. It is true that there are some limits due to the shallow depth of water in the Azov sea and to the  Crimean bridge that limit the max heigh of ships to about 30 meters, but many fluvial vessels and even small to medium seagoing ships could be built there if a proper shipyard were to be built, maybe even in the Azovstal premises.

(As an example, I know that it probably does not make sense, but even large Corvettes and Gorshkov class frigates could reach the harbour of Mariupol without big issues).

If their iron works were obsolete and high pollution and Russia already has good capacity in that area then I would look at other things to build there.

Regarding shipyard stuff, why corvettes and frigates... there are plenty of civilian shipping that needs to be built for the new Russian merchant marine that is going to shift Russian products around the world bypassing western middlemen who just take a cut and do nothing else.

They will need all sorts of ships and boats and once trade ties to the rest of the world are in place they can be building for other countries needs too.

They could even specialise on building rivercraft if they get access to the Danube...