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| Dell Reveals Opening Of Retail Store Offering In Moscow, Russia
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| Monday
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RTTNews) - Dell (DELL charts news PowerRating) on Wednesday revealed the opening of a retail store offering in Moscow, Russia.
The store, which is scheduled to open early next month in the new Gorbuskin Dvor retail center in Moscow, would feature notebooks, desktops, servers, printers and other products from Dell.
Commenting on the store opening, Dell's chairman and chief executive officer Michael Dell, said, "Dell is making additional investments in its business in Russia - both products and services - to meet the growing needs of the country's IT market, which is expected to double over the next four years."Labels: russian business news |
posted by blogger @ 4:50 PM
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| Meeting Russia’s Infrastructure Gap
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On behalf of the World Bank Group and President Robert B. Zoellick, let me congratulate the organizers of the VIth International Investment Forum in Sochi for this wonderful opportunity for open dialogue. I wish us all success and fruitful deliberations in the coming days. It is a great pleasure and privilege to be here today.
Why Infrastructure is Important
The case for infrastructure development is strong and easy to make. Indeed, it has been at the center of Russian politics ever since Peter the Great embarked on the process of Russia’s modernization.
It drove Sergei Witte’s resolve to develop the railway system and construct the Trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to Vladivostok that was completed in 1896 and opened the gateway to the Pacific almost 200 years after St Petersburg had been founded as the country’s gateway to the west. And it was the major force behind huge infrastructure developments of the Soviet era, such as major hydro-electric power systems.
Today the case for infrastructure is more valid than ever as Russia continues its quest to join the ranks of the most successful economies.
First and foremost, infrastructure development is key to economic growth. Good roads and bridges expand market opportunities, lower the costs of goods and services, and enable countries to use their productive capacity better.
Second, surveys all over the world have shown that well-developed infrastructure helps attract foreign investment and improves a country’s international competitiveness. And where infrastructure is inadequate, businesses suffer and complain.
....Russia faces the obvious need to develop and upgrade her infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, airports, electricity, water supply and sanitation, to enable producers to get their goods to market, to spur economic growth, and to provide education, health care and adequate living conditions for all, including the elderly.
One need only travel on the roads around Moscow or St. Petersburg to see how the numbers of motor vehicles have doubled, some even say quadrupled, since the transition and the strain that is putting on the road infrastructure that Russia inherited from Soviet times.
With its abundant oil and gas revenues, Russia has a single advantage today that other countries would envy. But international experience with infrastructure finance suggests that this is no reason for complacency. Challenges abound, even in cash rich countries. Read moreLabels: russian business news |
| posted by blogger @ 11:10 AM
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| Putin tells Asia: Russia is here to stay
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| Saturday
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Russian President Vladimir Putin's flurry of meetings with Asia-Pacific leaders here in recent days inspired the inevitable headline in at least one Australian daily: "The Russians Are Coming."
On the sidelines of a regional summit along with 20 other world leaders, Putin had a slightly different message: the Russians are here to stay.
Adding weight to the diplomatic assurances were big new deals with nations that highlight Russia's strengths in its traditional economic mainstays: arms and energy.
"We have recently come to the greatest dawn in Russian-Chinese relations," Putin told Chinese President Hu Jintao at two-way talks here Saturday -- words reinforced by four billion dollars (2.9 billion euros) in new bilateral trade deals this year alone.
He assured his Chinese counterpart that whoever takes the reins of power in Russia's March 2008 presidential vote, "there is no doubt that Russian policy toward China will not change in the coming years."
He had a similar message for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun in separate meetings on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
On his way to Sydney, Putin oversaw a billion-dollar deal to sell arms to Indonesia, and on Friday he signed an agreement that will let Russia buy an estimated one billion dollars' worth of Australian uranium a year.
Top officials from Russian state gas giant Gazprom were also on hand looking for new resources and markets. "It's no secret that we want to be the biggest supplier of natural gas to the Asia-Pacific region," Gazprom deputy chairman Alexander Medvedev said.
All this is evidence that Moscow has made a decisive shift east, officials and analysts say.
"The illusion many people had in the 1990s that close relations with the United States and Europe were enough to solve Russia's problems -- that illusion is gone," said Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the Russian parliament's international affairs committee.
"No future Russian president, whoever it is, can alter Vladimir Putin's strategic decision to develop our relations in the Asia-Pacific region in the most active way possible," Kosachyov told AFP.
Questions about Russia's course under its next president -- almost certain to be Putin's handpicked choice -- have kept domestic and foreign observers on tenterhooks.
Yet while Putin milks the suspense, he wants to assure his audience at home and abroad that the country will take no sharp turns, political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov said.
"Putin is saying: 'Don't worry, nothing terrible will happen after the elections. Relations with China and Japan aren't going to be broken,'" Lukyanov said by telephone from Moscow.
Russia's trade turnover with China, the region's economic powerhouse, was around 40 billion dollars in 2006, a fraction of US-Chinese trade of about 262 billion that year.
But Russia's move east has been motivated equally by economic and political considerations. Asia's surging energy demand makes it an obvious market for Russia, the world's biggest energy supplier, while growing diplomatic relations compensate for strains with the West.
Moscow routinely talks up the importance of organisations such as APEC and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) while questioning the relevance of Western-dominated groups such as the Group of Eight and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
Kosachyov said the SCO was "becoming a more effective forum every year," and was better suited than NATO to combating "the new threats of terrorism and arms trafficking."
The Shanghai-based group is also becoming more effective at rattling the West with ever-larger military exercises -- such as an August operation into which Russia ploughed 80 million dollars -- while decrying US "monopolarity."
Russia is also eager for its Asian neighbours to provide financial and technical help in developing its struggling Far East region, "without which, the development of Russia as a whole is impossible," Kosachyov said.
While China has thus far seen Russia chiefly as an energy supplier for its superheated economy, buying 15 million tonnes of its oil in 2006, China-Russia Business Council head Sergei Sanokoyev said that was changing.
"We're already adding new elements to our economic relationship, including major industrial cooperation," he told AFP.
Putin's assurances to Asian leaders "were very logical and very correct. In business circles, we understand our leaders' signals," Sanokoyev said. (Source)Labels: news, russian business news |
| posted by blogger @ 10:12 AM
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| Icelander to Construct 40 Malls in Russia
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Skúlason has lived in Russia since 1993.
Ingólfur Skúlason, CEO of Moscow-based BV Development, which he founded over a year ago with Russian and British business associates, is planning to construct 40 shopping malls in Russian cities within seven years.
“I aim to take advantage of the window that has opened up in the Russian economy,” Skúlason told Morgunbladid. “This is a gigantic project and will cost around USD 6 billion (EUR 4 billion).”
Each shopping mall is scheduled to be about 100,000 square meters in size and cost nearly USD 150 million (EUR 106 million).
Skúlason said BV Development is planning to enter the Ukrainian market next year.
BV Development is involved in property development and specializes in purchasing land and construction, including office buildings, hotels, apartments, summerhouses and other types of real estate, which the company then sells.
Skúlason has lived in Russia since 1993.Labels: malls, russian business news |
| posted by blogger @ 9:38 AM
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| More than 50,000 cars made in China will be sold in Russia by the end of 2007
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| Friday
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More than 50,000 cars made in China will be sold in Russia by the end of 2007, Vice President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce Sergei Katyrin said on Friday, when opening the international conference on "Automobile Business in Russia and China: Development Trend and Cooperation Prospects".
Russia's import of Chinese cars grows rapidly. Only 260 were sold in 2004 and more than 50,000 will be sold by the end of 2007.
With such a sale growth, it is necessary to switch the trade to a civilised way and stop the chaos created on the Russian market. The conference is expected to help it, Katyrin added.
Representatives of Russian market dealers' circles believe that Chinese cars have already shown themselves on the Russian market and their share will steadily grow.
The secretary general of the Chinese association of automakers noted that China accumulated certain experience of mass car production over 20 years and was ready to share it with Russia colleagues.
He said that 7,200,000 cars were produced in China in 2006, and the country plans to considerably increase the export to Russia.
A Chinese embassy secretary noted that the Chinese-Russian trade turnover was expected to exceed 40 billion dollars in 2007 and to amount to 60-80 billion by 2010. Cars and spare parts account for a considerable part, and it is expected to exceed 16 percent, he added.
Chinese participants in the conference view the Russian market as the most promising for Chinese automakers and do not plan to be limited only to car sale in Russia. They said they planned to set up assembly production, sale and service centres.Labels: business, car, russian business news |
| posted by blogger @ 8:06 AM
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| World Bank Sees A Tougher Russia
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| Thursday
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The flood of petrodollars into the economy is stifling reforms, and the country is falling behind its key emerging-market rival, China, on the ease of doing business, the World Bank says.
In a survey published Wednesday, the World Bank placed Russia 106 out of 178 countries for ease of doing business.Labels: news, russian business news |
| posted by blogger @ 10:13 AM
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| Russia govt must stay out of business: financier
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| Tuesday
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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia needs to guarantee the rule of law and keep government out of business in order to guarantee future prosperity, a leading Moscow-based financier said at the Reuters Russia Investment Summit.
Boris Jordan, who helped advise on the country's first privatizations in the 1990s and now runs a $2 billion private equity and advisory firm named the Sputnik Group, said Russia had made huge progress since the rocky first days of capitalism.
The rouble was not fully convertible and currency controls had virtually gone -- but much remained to be done.
"The economic reform process, particularly over the last four years, in my opinion, has come to a grinding halt," Jordan told the Summit, held at Reuters' offices in Moscow.
"The big question is the rule of law ... probably the single biggest thing business in Russia today suffers from is that you can't really expect to get a proper court hearing," he said.
Jordan also mentioned the dispute between the government and one of the country's top 10 firms Russneft as an example of state interference which concerned investors.
......Wealthy Russian investors were now keener than in the past to invest in their homeland but still faced a shortage of suitable projects requiring major capital injections, he said.
Jordan said Sputnik, a 15-person group which manages only its own money, had 60 percent of its portfolio invested abroad. This was not because of worries about political risk but due to a lack of suitable investment projects in Russia.
Equally, the financier said that recent flows of capital out of Russia had not been driven by worries about forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections but rather by the global lack of liquidity in the financial system.
........The Russian state, he suggested, should focus on infrastructure projects such as providing better roads and essential services to open up new suburbs, allowing residents to move out of crowded and densely populated cities. Read article hereLabels: business, russian business news |
| posted by blogger @ 5:27 PM
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| Helping Russia's Media Move Toward More Freedom
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WILLIAM DUNKERLEY holds the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. He owns a media consulting firm in New Britain and is an expert on Russian media. He has done extensive work with the media in Russia and six other eastern European countries and also has lectured and written at length about the Russian media.
Q: In your work as a media consultant in Russia and other former Soviet-bloc countries, what are some of the prime differences you've witnessed there compared with the United States?
A: The media in virtually all the former communist countries have been going through a transition. During the communist era the media were owned or controlled by the party or government and served as instruments of them and so it's been quite a transition to go from that situation to one where media companies aspire to achieve independence and profitability
The ones that have been quick to join NATO and the European Union seem to have a leg up. Some of them didn't function under communism for as long a period of time as did Russia. Russia's transition has been rougher.
Q: In a report you wrote, you indicated that one impediment to true press freedom in Russia was that too much of the media was controlled by too few individuals. In the United States, more and more media are controlled by fewer large corporations. Do you see this jeopardizing true press freedom in the United States?
A: The consolidation of media ownership in the United States has in some respects narrowed the diversity of choices, but it certainly isn't as narrow as what it is in Russia.
To illustrate, Russian newspapers generally have price lists for what they would sell a news story for. If you went to a newspaper and said you'd like a really nice story written about your company, there's a price for that. You could also buy an unfavorable story about a competitor. It's an entrenched system.
Q: According to statistics from the U.S.-Russian Business Council, Russia now has the world's 10th largest economy. What role do you see the Russian media playing in expanding Russia's place in the world economy?
A: There's been a boom in Russia's advertising market. It is regarded as one of the fastest growing advertising markets in the world. The latest figures place Russian annual advertising spending at around $4 billion, up 24 percent from the previous year. In the U.S., advertising spending is a bit over $150 billion, with a relatively flat growth curve.
You can read all interview clicking hereLabels: media, russian business news |
| posted by blogger @ 3:15 PM
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| Wholesale center Fruit&Vegetable Business of Russia 2007"
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The organizers of the second international conference "Fruit&Vegetable Business of Russia 2007" invite wholesale companies to participate in the work of Wholesale Center to be held on the 24th of October 2007 in the framework of this event. Theconference will take place in the Expocenter on Krasnaya Presnya, Moscow, on the 23rd - 25th of October 2007.
The wholesale center idea came out due to the numerous complaints of Russian wholesalers about the difficulties they face to purchase quality vegetables and fruits of the national origin; from the other side, the producers used to complain on the problems to sell the grown products as well.
The Wholesale Center is aimed to help the wholesale companies meet with a large number of the growers at one place and discuss the options of cooperation; it especially concerns the companies - buyers of fruits and vegetables from Russian producers. Large producers of vegetables and potato, fruit growing farms, greenhouse complexes, importers and other companies engaged in fruit&vegetable sector will be present in the event.Labels: russian business news |
| posted by blogger @ 3:03 PM
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