SOVEREIGN ECONOMY: TOP EVENTS OF THE WEEK
05/05/2023, 15:00
The Russian government continues to tighten the rules for withdrawing foreign investments. The limit on purchasing currency on the domestic Russian market when foreign companies sell assets in Russia will be the same for all deals. The introduced rule discriminates against foreign investors, depriving them of the opportunity to choose a favourable period for buying currency.
Oil, gas, and condensate production statistics are being kept in secret until April 2024. The Russian government has suspended the publication of statistics on oil, gas, and condensate production until April 1, 2024. Thus, the disclosure of monthly data is prohibited from March 2023 and quarterly reporting - from the first quarter.
Confiscation of funds from bloggers becomes a part of the fiscal policy. In particular, the Investigative Committee has initiated a criminal case against blogger Elena Blinovskaya, accused of evading taxes in the amount of almost 1 billion rubles. Similar violations are assigned to bloggers Alexander Mitroshin (for over 120 million rubles), Valery Chekalin (for more than 311 million rubles) and others.
The Russian government has raised the price for electricity transmission once again. The services for electricity transmission through the Russian Unified Energy System (UES) have increased by 6.3% since May 1. The corresponding government order is published on the official website with legal information. This decision will lead to an increase in electricity prices for Russian consumers and will result in higher costs for goods and services.
Gazprom is concerned about the trends in the European gas market. The spot price for gas has decreased by another 3%. The "day-ahead" delivery contract at the TTF hub in the Netherlands closed at $415 per thousand cubic meters. At the same time, gas injection rates into storage facilities have been lower than expected for the past five years. This is due to the current level of gas reserves, which stands at 60.36% - 20 percentage points higher than the average for the same dates over the past five years.
