Economic News from Russia

[Nor56]

the only thing Russia doesn't have is Disney world okay Prussia Russia! you cannot beat America...Russia is America's little brother trying to prove its better

Hello. Russia can not be a brother to America. America the new state. Russian territory and resources more than the United States. And Russia has regained Crimea. Here it is real democracy without war and murder.

[RussiaPrussia]

Russian-Chinese Trade Could Grow to $100 Billion by Next Year – Russian Official



Russian-Chinese Trade Could Grow to $100 Billion by Next Year – Russian Official
© Сollage by RIA Novosti





Tags: trade, economy, Dmitry Rogozin, China, Russia
VLADIVOSTOK, April 18 (RIA Novosti) – Russia and China can boost their bilateral trade to $100 billion by next year, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said at a meeting of officials from the two countries Friday.
Rogozin said that growth in trade between the two countries had accelerated in the first two months of this year to 4 percent, but called for even faster expansion.
“The pace is insufficient in order to meet the objective set by the leaders of Russia and China – to bring the bilateral trade turnover to $100 billion by 2015," Rogozin said at the meeting held in Russia's Vladivostok in the Far East.

Last year, China became Russia's largest trade partner and Russia became China's ninth largest, Rogozin said.
Chinese officials aim to stimulate investment in Russia and encourage an attractive business environment in the country, the Russian deputy prime minister said, adding that Russia will present several large investment projects at an upcoming exhibition in China in June.
Beijing is cementing its business ties with Moscow amid strained relations between Russia and the EU. President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit China next month and sign a number of bilateral agreements, including on potential Russian gas supplies to China.
Chinese investors recently confirmed plans to launch the first phase of a major Siberian timber complex later this year. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev earlier said that cooperation with Beijing is a top priority for Moscow.

China is also interested in the development of alternative energy projects in Russia's new regions of Crimea and Sevastopol, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said Wednesday.
Following Crimea's reunification with Russia, European countries announced a three-stage sanctions process against Russia.
The first stage saw the suspension of talks of a number of Russian and EU working groups. In the second stage, the EU announced visa sanctions and asset freezes against targeted Russian officials. The third stage, not yet reached, would be broad economic sanctions.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has called the language of sanctions in relation to Russia both inappropriate and counterproductive.

[RussiaPrussia]

A must-know investor’s guide to Russia’s web giant, Yandex

By Smita Nair • Mar 28, 2014 10:17 am EDT Tweet Share Email Print
Yandex
Yandex N.V. (YNDX) is one of the largest Internet companies in Europe, operating Russia’s most popular search engine and its most visited website. The stock plunged earlier this month with other Russian stocks, impacted by the Crimean crisis, and it’s down almost 32% year-to-date. Yandex derives most of its revenues from online advertising and saw investor concerns over economic sanctions imposed on Russia that may lead to lower spending on advertising. Shares had also taken a hit last month, when Yandex’s fourth-quarter profits missed Street estimates.
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The Netherlands-headquartered Yandex is presenting tough competition to Google Inc. (GOOG) in Russia, as search engine yandex.ru is the largest Internet search service provider in Russia, with a 61.9% market share (Liveinternet.ru). Google, which dominates the global Internet search market, has about a 26% market share in Russia. Yandex generated 61.7% of all search traffic in Russia, and its Yandex sites attracted 66 million unique visitors in January 2014. Yandex also operates in Ukraine (30% market share), Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Turkey (4% market share)—regions that use Cyrillic characters.
Similar to Yandex, Baidu (BIDU) is the search engine leader in China. Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) too offer search services and generate revenue from search ads.
Yandex believes its mission is to help users solve their everyday problems by building people-centric products and services. The company uses its technical capabilities to develop advanced search technology and information retrieval services. Yandex’s search services and many of its other services are location-based and available in versions tailored for mobile and other digital platforms or devices. The company also offers a wide range of specialized search-based, personal, and location-based services.
Yandex’s popular mobile apps include Yandex.Maps, a mapping service that provides detailed maps of more than 1,300 cities and towns in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, together with satellite images and hybrid maps, panoramic street views, and driving directions for desktop and mobile users. Yandex.Market is an online retail comparison shopping service that’s being revamped to benefit from the growth of e-commerce in Russia. Yandex said on its 4Q 2013 earnings call that its revenue growth was primarily driven by Yandex.Taxi, a taxi ordering service with traffic-based routing. Other mobile applications include Yandex.Search for Mobile, Yandex.Mail, and the online payment service Yandex.Money.
Yandex’s history traces back to the 1990s, when its first search technologies were developed by Arkady Volozh and Arkady Borkovsky while working at the company Arkadia. The word “Yandex,” which is a portmanteau for “Yet Another Index,” was invented by its two principal founders, Ilya Segalovich and Arkady Volozh. The yandex.ru search engine officially launched on September 23, 1997. Yandex went public on the NASDAQ Global Select Market in May 2011 and raised $1.3 billion in the largest technology IPO worldwide that year.

BIDU	$155.79	-$1.44	-0.92%
GOOG	$536.64	-$19.90	-3.58%
MSFT	$40.02	-$0.38	-0.94%
YHOO	$36.38	$0.03	0.08%
YNDX	$29.96	$1.87	6.66%

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PART 2

Why is Russian web giant Yandex seeing its growth slow?

By Smita Nair • 2:18 pm EDT Tweet Share Email Print
Yandex growth
Yandex has consistently beat earnings estimates over the past few quarters, but its fourth quarter earnings came below analyst expectations. The company reported $0.31 diluted EPS for the quarter, down from $0.93 in the previous quarter, and up from $0.26 in the fourth quarter of 2012. Net income rose 24% from a year earlier, to $102.2 million. Revenues of $369.3 million were up 37% compared to the fourth quarter of 2012. Excluding traffic acquisition costs or TACs, revenues were up 25% year-over-year. For fiscal 2013, revenues were up 37%, to $1,206.9 million compared to fiscal 2012. The figures excluded online payment service Yandex.Money, which Yandex operates as a joint venture after selling a 75% stake to Russian bank Sberbank in July last year.
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Advertising revenues, which we’ll discuss in detail in the next part of this series, continued to determine overall top-line performance. Other revenues almost tripled, but still accounted for less than 1% of total revenues.
Adjusted EBITDA of 5.1 billion rubles ($157.3 million) was up 21% compared to the fourth quarter of 2012, while adjusted EBITDA margin was 42.6%—down sequentially from 43.2%. In the third quarter of 2013, Yandex said adjusted EBITDA margins declined on a year-over-year basis due to the inclusion of an advertising agreement with Mail.Ru and more linear advertisement spending in 2013 compared to 2012 levels.
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Yandex saw markets react negatively when it said it expected revenues to increase by 25% to 30% this year, slower than in 2013. Analysts believe a slowdown in the Russian economy has led to sluggish growth in the market for contextual advertising.
Yandex’s Russian Internet peer, Mail.Ru (MLRYY), also forecast slowing revenue growth for this year. Yandex’s Chinese peer, Baidu (BIDU), which announced its 4Q results earlier this month, earned $460 million in the fourth quarter of 2013—down 0.4% compared to the same period in the previous year. Baidu attributed its reduced earnings mainly to its increase in operating expenses. Another peer, Yahoo (YHOO), reported slowing quarterly revenue and profit growth in the fourth quarter of 2013.
Both Yandex and the London-listed Mail.Ru are planning a secondary listing in Moscow in the near future. The companies said they would favor inclusion on Russian equity indexes, and the move would allow employees to trade stocks and enhance liquidity.

BIDU	$155.79	-$1.44	-0.92%
GOOG	$536.64	-$19.90	-3.58%
MLRYY	-	-	-
MSFT	$40.02	-$0.38	-0.94%
YNDX	$29.96	$1.87	6.66%

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PART 3

Contextual advertising boosts web company Yandex’s revenues

By Smita Nair • 6:17 pm EDT Tweet Share Email Print
Yandex revenues
Yandex, like its Internet peers Google (GOOG), Baidu (BIDU), and Yahoo (YHOO), earns the majority of its revenue through selling ads—especially text-based contextual ads, which are targeted based on users’ searches. Text-based advertising revenues accounted for 90% of Yandex’s total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2013. Display advertising revenue, accounting for 10% of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2013, increased 20%, to $32.2 million, compared to the fourth quarter of 2012.
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In 2001, Yandex launched Yandex.Direct, the largest automated, auction-based system for the placement of text-based advertising that made it easy for advertisers to bid for desired keywords and obtain the best prices for their ads. The company also delivers ads to the thousands of third-party websites that make up its Yandex ad network. It also earns a smaller portion of its revenues from display advertising, which principally consists of graphical ads that appear on specific webpages. Yandex said on its fourth quarter earnings call that Yandex.Direct covered approximately 70% of all search pages in Russia. According to ComScore, as of January 2014, the Yandex Advertising Network covered 96% of Russia’s Internet audience.
Yandex ad network revenue soars
Text-based advertising revenues were up 42% year-over-year, to $305.6 million. Text-based ad revenues from Yandex’s own websites accounted for 66% of total revenues during the fourth quarter of 2013, and increased 30%, to $224 million, compared to the fourth quarter of 2012. Text-based ad revenues from Yandex’s ad network increased 94% year-over-year, to $79.2 million, and contributed 23% of total revenues during the fourth quarter.
The number of advertisers grew to more than 270,000, up 30% from 4Q 2012 and up 10% sequentially. Paid clicks on Yandex’s and its partners’ websites, in aggregate, increased 52% year-over-year and grew 22% sequentially. But the average cost per click in the fourth quarter of 2013 decreased 7% year-over-year. Growth in the number of paid clicks on Yandex’s own websites was driven by higher ad coverage, click-through rate (CTR) improvements due to better targeting and improved click prediction, and implementation of a new ad layout.
Mail.Ru deal powers partner network revenues
In the fourth quarter of 2013, traffic acquisition costs (TACs) increased 100% year-over-year, with TACs from partner advertising network surging 118%. Yandex said the increase of partner network revenues as a share of total revenues, together with an increase in the growth rate of the ad network, reflected its earlier agreement with Mail.Ru. Yandex inked a deal with domestic rival Mail.Ru last year, under which Yandex shares advertising profits with the mail provider in exchange for Yandex’s advertisers getting access to Mail.Ru’s users. Mail.Ru offers a wide range of Internet services, including a popular Russian web mail service, and it operates two social networks, MoiMir and Odnoklassniki.Ru. Mail.Ru also owns a strategic minority stake in the most popular social network Vkontakte.Ru.
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Last month, Yandex announced a partnership with Google over online display advertising sales. Through this partnership, Google’s and Yandex’s real-time bidding (or RTB) systems will be integrated, and Google’s advertising clients will gain access to the advertising inventory offered by publishers in Yandex’s Advertising Network, while Yandex’s advertising clients will be able to bid for display inventory in Google’s DoubleClick AdExchange.
Technology that enhances contextual advertising
Yandex uses its proprietary machine learning technology, MatrixNet, to display ads on its ad network. The technology allows the system to deliver ads better related to web users’ interests. To implement demographics-based ad targeting, Yandex has developed a new behavior analytics technology, Crypta, which analyzes hundreds of factors—like the length of search queries or the presence of certain terms. Advertisers can target their offers to the interests of specific age or gender groups in their Russian audience. Last year, Yandex said it had enhanced its precision-advertising audience targeting to increase click-through rates. The new Crypta-powered targeting technology finds patterns in website visitor behavior and then tracks down those who exhibit similar behavior online. Combined with the information about users’ actions on a website, provided by website analytics tool Yandex.Metrica, the new targeting allows advertisers to show their ads to a very narrow audience.

BIDU	$155.79	-$1.44	-0.92%
GOOG	$536.64	-$19.90	-3.58%
MLRYY	-	-	-
YHOO	$36.38	$0.03	0.08%
YNDX	$29.96	$1.87	6.66%

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PART 4

Yandex sees a market share increase powered by its search service

By Smita Nair • Mar 31, 2014 9:00 am EDT Tweet Share Email Print
Yandex market share
Yandex’s management attributed its strong fourth quarter results to growth in its search share on desktop and mobile devices. Yandex implemented significant changes in its paid search algorithms, substantially grew the number of advertisers on its platform, and broadened the reach of its partner network—all contributing to its positive results.
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Yandex believes it’s at the forefront of search technology, and it uses linguistics, mathematics, and statistical analysis to develop proprietary algorithms that efficiently extract, compile, systematize, and present relevant information to users. The results are supplemented by results from its parallel search system, which blends listings from all available Yandex specialized and vertical searches according to their relative relevance, such as Yandex.News, Yandex.Market, Yandex.Maps, Yandex.Music, Yandex.Image, and Yandex.Video. Yandex search is also responsive to real-time queries, recognizing when a query requires the most current information. Last year, Yandex launched the beta version of Islands, a new search platform that delivers results in the form of interactive blocks, which can accommodate various kinds of information—from texts to videos, pictures, and interactive forms.
Earlier in 2013, reports cited ComScore data and said Yandex had surpassed Bing in its number of monthly search queries in November and December of 2012 and had become the fourth-largest search engine in the world.
According to LiveInternet, Yandex’s overall share of search in Russia across all platforms rose from 60.5% at the end of 2012 to 61.9% at the end of 2013. Mobile accounted for 16% of search queries in the fourth quarter of 2013 and attributed around 12% of Yandex’s direct revenues, compared to 15% in traffic and 11% in revenues in the third quarter. Geographically, Yandex saw its market share increase in Ukraine and Belarus, where the company estimated that it has overtaken Google as the leading search engine.
Yandex said its search share on Android rose from around 42% in December 2012 to about 52% in December 2013. Its search share on iOS is continually grew from around 35% in December 2012 to around 45% in February, when the company announced its earnings. Yandex attributed these gains to a combination of factors, including the quality of search technology, improved distribution efforts, and partnerships with OEMs and retailers. The company also has a strategic agreement with Apple (AAPL) to be available as one of the search options in Apple’s Safari on mobile and desktop devices, while Yandex powers Apple Maps in Russia. The mobile Yandex browser launched in the second half of 2013 also added to its search market share.
Yandex collaborates with Facebook (FB) on search, and a recent partnership agreement with Facebook gives Yandex full access to the social network’s “firehose” of public data that will improve the quality of its search results. Yandex expects to get full access to public posts of Facebook users in Russia, in CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries including Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, and in Turkey. Yandex’s search is already integrated with other social networking sites like Twitter (TWTR), LiveJournal, and VKontakte (VK)—Russia’s answer to Facebook. Facebook too expects to gain more visibility in the Russian market with Yandex and compete against popular Russian social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki.

AAPL	$525.00	$5.99	1.15%
FB	$58.96	-$0.76	-1.27%
GOOG	$536.64	-$19.90	-3.58%
TWTR	$45.03	$0.61	1.37%
YHOO	$36.38	$0.03	0.08%

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PART 5

Why Yandex’s plans to diversify could challenge Google in Russia

By Smita Nair • 1:00 pm EDT Tweet Share Email Print
Yandex diversifies
In a move to diversify beyond just being a search engine, Yandex has been developing mobile applications and online services. The Russian Internet giant has been seeking to grow via acquisitions and improve its product offerings to better compete with Google in the Russian market. It further expects to benefit from increased Internet penetration and smartphone adoption in Russia.
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eMarketer estimates that nearly 234 million people in Central and Eastern Europe, or 54.4% of the region’s population, will go online regularly in 2013. Around one-third of Internet users in the region will reside in Russia. eMarketer further said that 54.4% of people in Russia will be Internet users in 2013. eMarketer expects growth to be slow but steady through 2017, when Internet users will account for more than two-thirds of the country’s population.
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Yandex launched a free and complete firmware kit last month for Android smartphones aimed at vendors who want to replace Google’s default apps and services. Dubbed as a “comprehensive, out-of-the-box solution, versatile and technologically honed,” Yandex.Kit is built on Android’s open source platform and is a customizable suite of mobile components available for most versions of Android OS. The Yandex.Kit package for Russian vendors includes 15 apps such as an app store, launcher and dialer, browser, maps, and a cloud app, Yandex.Disk. OEMs targeting other markets were offered a restricted version with interactive 3D Yandex.Shell user interface, Yandex.Browser, and Yandex.Store—a marketplace with over 100,000 apps. Yandex said Huawei Technologies Co. and ZAO Explay have adopted its alternative Android software and will launch handsets in March. With Yandex.Kit, the company aims to strengthen its position in mobile search, especially on Android devices.
Yandex expects to increase its market share on Android phones and benefit from growing mobile advertising, Yandex’s head of mobile ecosystems, Alexander Zverev, told Bloomberg in a recent interview. He added that Yandex also has over 90% market share on smartphones with Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Phone OS.
Digital ad spending in Russia is expected to reach $3.18 billion in 2017, up from $1.62 billion last year, eMarketer estimated last year. Mobile Internet ad spending, meanwhile, will reach $162.4 million in Central and Eastern Europe this year, up 130% from 2012 spending levels—a growth rate that’s the same in Russia as the rest of the region. On the mobile front, Russia accounts for a smaller 38.3% of regional mobile spending, eMarketer said in its “Global Media Intelligence Report.”

Yandex expands product offerings via acquisitions
The “Google of Russia,” Yandex last month acquired Israel-based KitLocate, a maker of low-power mobile geolocation technology. KitLocate’s battery-saving technology can apply in mobile applications for which data on a user’s movements are essential, in order to offer services based on location. Yandex will use KitLocate to improve its own services, including the personalization of mobile search and targeted advertising. Yandex is also opening its first research and development (R&D) center in Israel. According to news reports, Chinese Internet giant Baidu (BIDU) and Yandex are interested in expanding to the Middle Eastern market.
Yandex previously acquired KinoPoisk, an online comprehensive Russian-language database of film information and recommendations known as “the IMDB of Russia.” KinoPoisk has a worldwide monthly audience of 18.6 million users, according to ComScore Media Metrix. Yandex said that, using search personalization algorithms and machine-learning technology along with KinoPoisk’s content, the company will develop an extended movie recommendation system tailored to users’ preferences and interests.
In January, Yandex signed a cooperation agreement with MultiShip, a logistics services aggregator. Based on the agreement, Yandex is purchasing MultiShip’s software platform for $1 million and investing several million into the company’s development. The combined team of Yandex and MultiShip developers will complete work on a technological platform for cooperation between stores and logistics providers. With MultiShip, Yandex expects to facilitate communication between Internet stores and shoppers wherever they’re located in Russia. MultiShip will become a potential partner that will help with deliveries to stores that work with Yandex.Market.
Yandex said last year that Yandex Labs, in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, developed an application for TV that shows personalized content on a TV screen and allows the users to easily manipulate and interact with the content using hand gestures. However, it has yet to implement the results in a real-life application. In October 2013, Yandex released Cocaine, an open-source PaaS (platform as a service) system for creating custom cloud hosting apps. The free tool is similar to Google App Engine or Heroku, and it includes C++, Python, and JavaScript programming languages, with Java and Racket support in development. Yandex also debuted Twym last year, which is designed to facilitate instant transfers in rubles between Twitter users who have Yandex.Money accounts.
Early last year, Yandex Labs had developed an experimental voice-powered social search app, Wonder, which drew information from users of Facebook (FB), Instagram, Foursquare, and Twitter (TWTR) in the U.S. But Facebook (FB) blocked Yandex’s access, and the app was withdrawn.

FB	$58.96	-$0.76	-1.27%
GOOG	$536.64	-$19.90	-3.58%
MSFT	$40.02	-$0.38	-0.94%
TWTR	$45.03	$0.61	1.37%
YNDX	$29.96	$1.87	6.66%

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PART 6

Must-know: Evaluating Yandex versus other key search engines

By Smita Nair • Mar 31, 2014 5:00 pm EDT Tweet Share Email Print
Yandex versus its competitors
We’ve compared Yandex with other search engine stocks, such as Google (GOOG), Baidu (BIDU), Yahoo (YHOO), and Microsoft (MSFT). Microsoft’s Bing currently powers Yahoo’s search under a 2009 agreement, but Yahoo is trying to look for ways to end the partnership, as its revenue is declining due to lower search market share. From a multiples perspective, Yandex trades cheaper, at a 26.1x P/E, compared to Internet behemoths Google and Baidu (which is dominant in China). Yandex has the highest profit margins and gross margins among its peers.
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In terms of estimated EPS growth, Yandex’s growth rate is almost in line with that of peers Google and Baidu, which appears to be leading forward P/E growth.
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Yandex repurchased 10 million shares as of February 18, 2014, as part of a previously announced share repurchase program, and increased authorization to repurchase a total of up to 15 million shares. It placed $600 million of 1.125% convertible senior notes due 2018 in December 2013 and an additional $90 million in January 2014. The proceeds will be used to fund a share buyback program and for general corporate purposes.
Russian stocks including Yandex, the Micex index, and the Market Vectors Russia ETF (RSX) plunged earlier this month, impacted by geopolitical risks arising from the Russian invasion of Crimea. Russian stocks witnessed a selloff over concerns on the limited U.S. and European Union sanctions against Russia, which is already experiencing an economic slowdown. A decline in discretionary spending could affect companies such as Yandex, whose growth depends on advertising revenues. However, some analysts believe the selloff is temporary and that investors can see a fall in Yandex’s share price as a significant buying opportunity.
To find out more about the international web advertising market and another important player, Baidu, please see the Market Realist series Why Baidu focuses on mobile as its Q4 top-line grows fast.

[RussiaPrussia]

[RussiaPrussia]

Trade turnover between Russia and Azerbaijan on the rise







The two neighboring countries, Russia and Azerbaijan, have historically developed productive cooperation in many sectors. Currently, there are about 570 Russian companies operating in Azerbaijan.



Over the past few years, Russian investments in Azerbaijan's economy exceeded $600 million, while Azerbaijan has invested almost $1 billion in the Russian economy in the last 10 years, according to the Ministry of Economy and Industry of Azerbaijan. Bilateral turnover between the two states totaled $2.6 billion in 2013, the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee said.
A good tradition is to hold Azerbaijani-Russian Business Forums, the latest one taking place this week in Baku. The forum was attended by about 60 businessmen representing such areas as industry, agriculture, construction, consulting and tourism.
"The trade turnover between Russia and Azerbaijan increased by 10% in 2013,”Azerbaijani Minister of Economy and Industry,” Shahin Mustafayev said. “Despite this, there are broad opportunities for further development of mutual cooperation, and Azerbaijan is interested in this."
The former Soviet state is now cooperating with 78 entities from Russian Federation. So far, Azerbaijan and Russia have signed more than 30 business contracts. The recent forum saw the country signing even more contracts and agreements with Russian regions. By way of example, the Chambers of Commerce of Azerbaijan and Stavropol Krai inked agreements of cooperation in the tourism sector. Also, the two sides plan partnership in such areas as greenhouses, food security, development of agribusiness and logistics business. The local officials stress that economic development in Azerbaijan has provided entrepreneurs with necessary resources to invest abroad.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/radio_broad...ram/271333328/

[RussiaPrussia]

2014 promises renewal of a number of Russia-India contracts





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Many analysts say 2014 could become a new milestone in business relationship between India and Russia as it promises the renewal of a number of bilateral contracts. Energy has long been one of the key aspects of the cooperation between the two states. Four years ago, Russia and India signed a roadmap for building up to 16 Russian-design power units in India.



Currently, the country plans to build 19 nuclear power units with a combined capacity of 17,400 MW by 2017. Russia is set to help build two units at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant. The construction of the second phase of the plant is being negotiated now. Russia’s Rosatom hopes that Russia and India will sign a deal on the project soon.
“We have just concluded a round of talks in India,” Rosatom State Corporation Director-General Sergei Kiriyenko said at an international forum on nuclear security last week.
Also, Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft, Russia's biggest oil company, led a delegation last month to meet India’s Oil Secretary, Saurabh Chandra, seeking to expand ties with New Delhi. The Russian state oil major is offering India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) a stake in nine offshore oil and gas blocks in the Barents Sea and one in the Black Sea.
“India is a very important country for Russia,” Igor Sechin said. “We have a very efficiently run project with ONGC...now we want to expand our cooperation. We are (also) looking at supplying crude oil to Indian refineries.”
Currently, India does not have a firm contract to import crude oil from Russia, while it gets small volumes once in a while from ONGC's Sakhalin-1 project in Far East Russia.
The defense interactions between Russia and India imply almost every contract providing the creation of joint ventures or licensed production. In 2013, India’s import of Russian weapons reached $4.7 billion. Another industry which attracts India is computer-guided weapons, produced by the Russian Morinformsystem-Agat Concern.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/radio_broad...ram/271364756/

[RussiaPrussia]

Business

Russia's Novatek Hopes Contract for LNG Supplies to China to Be Signed in May



Liquefied natural gas plant
© RIA Novosti. Sergey Guneev





Tags: liquefied natural gas (LNG), Novatek, Leonid Mikhelson, China, Russia
MOSCOW, April 18 (PRIME/RIA Novosti) – Russia's second largest gas producer Novatek expects a contract to supply Siberian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China will be signed during a May visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Asian country, the CEO of the company told reporters Friday.
“We are planning for it during the visit in May,” Leonid Mikhelson said, responding to a question about the projected time frame for the signing of the contract.
Mikhelson added that the document will contain specific figures, including price levels. He said that some 75-78 percent of production at the Yamal LNG project has already been contracted, and the company may reach 100 percent soon.
China’s CNPC owns 20 percent of the Yamal LNG project. The agreement to buy a stake in the project, signed last September, provides for a long-term LNG supply contract with a minimum delivery of 3 million tons per year to China.
Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said earlier that a number of bilateral agreements are expected to be signed during Putin’s visit to China next month.
Novatek, controlled by billionaires Gennady Timchenko and CEO Leonid Mikhelson, partnered with China’s CNPC and France’s Total in the $20 billion LNG project on the Arctic Yamal peninsula.
The Yamal LNG Project involves the construction of facilities to supply 16.5 million tons of LNG per year from the resource base of South Tambeiskoye.
Confirmed and potential reserves of gas as of December 31, 2013 under PRMS standards are estimated at 927 billion cubic meters.

[RussiaPrussia]

GAZ started production of GAZelle-Next minibus



The Gorky Automobile Plant announced the launch of the new GAZelle-Next minibus. It will be really revolutionary for GAZ. Instead of the unibody, the passenger GAZelle-Next got a steel carcass onto which body panels made of zinc-galvanized steel or fiberglass were suspended. Thus they managed to create a roomy cabin (its height is 190 cm) for 18 or 19 passengers.

The minibus is similar to the GAZelle-Next trucks technically. It is equipped with a 2,8-liter Cummins ISF turbodiesel engine (120 hp) and 5-speed manual transmission.
The price for the new minibus will begin from 985 thousand rubles.

[LightHouse89]

Hello. Russia can not be a brother to America. America the new state. Russian territory and resources more than the United States. And Russia has regained Crimea. Here it is real democracy without war and murder.

no we still control the worlds trade and if our economy sinks so will the rest of the world. America is letting Russia do what they want. Obama even openly said its Russia and Europe's problem not ours. Yes what would Russia do with out Crimea? They would loose their power in the black sea.....meanwhile America patrols all of the major oceans in the world including the black sea . Nice try though.

[RussiaPrussia]