By Kenneth Rapoza, Contributor
Russia’s biggest oil firm, , reported an 18% increase in net profits on Monday to $4.4 billion. As the company gets a bit richer, it’s looking abroad for more action. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Russia‘s economy is probably not, as Ksenia Yudaeva, Russia‘s representative to the Group of 20 nations told Bloomberg the other day, “already in recession,” but it’s economy is clearly decelerating: growth for 2012 as a whole was 3.4%, but in the 4th quarter of 2012 it was only around 2.1% and provisional estimates of growth in the 1st quarter of 2013 are only around 1.1%. The economic slowdown is so significant that it has already been reflected in the Economy ministry’s 2013 growth forecast, which was recently slashed from 3.6% to 2.4%. Before proceeding further it seems worth noting that the initial forecast of 3.6% wasn’t bizarrely optimistic or unrealistic: the IMF‘s 2013 projection for Russia was actually marginally higher at 3.7%, and other forecasts generally had Russia in the 3.5% range of unspectacular but reasonable growth.
By Kenneth Rapoza, Contributor
Russia’s banks will be safe should the Cyprus bailout fail, says first deputy chairman of the Bank of Russia Alexei Simanovsky in an article published Friday in Kommersant. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Kenneth Rapoza, Contributor
Russia-owned Rosneft is now the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company, surpassing ExxonMobil (XOM). …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Mark Adomanis, Contributor Russia’s demographic challenges, while serious, are probably going to be much less severe than those facing other countries in Eastern Europe since those countries have already suffered much larger population declines.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
