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Romanians gripped by cryptocurrency euphoria during the pandemic

The euphoria of the 1990s is back as small investors ignore the risks and dream of getting rich overnight.

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EXPLAINER: Just how bad are the sanctions on Russia’s ruble-denominated OFZ treasury bonds?

The White House has slapped new sanctions on Russia and targeted the Russian Ministry of Finance ruble-denominated OFZ treasury bills for the first time, the workhorse bond that is used to fund the budget. But what do the sanctions mean in practice?

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Uzbekistan's stock market sees its first big "pump & dump" incident

The share price of Uzbek insurance company Universal Sugurta rose 200,000% in the first two months of this year, only to collapse again in March. It looks like a classic "pump and dump" play, but for the nascent market that's probably a good thing.

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BORDERLEX: EU Commission goes back to the drawing board to revive Turkey trade talks

The Commission's latest attempt to revamp the customs union with Turkey faces many obstacles before it can even start.

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Allegro will have to move fast to stem the Amazon flood

US e-commerce giant's push into the booming Polish market will make it much more competitive overnight.

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COMMENT: Strengthening the foundation of the Uzbek capital markets infrastructure

After their sitting moribund for two and half decades, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has just launched a major reform of the Uzbek capital markets that could transform financing in the republic.

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Zelenskiy meets Macron as Russia engages in a diplomatic dance over a possible Biden-Putin summit

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and for the restart of the four-way talks under the Normandy Format during a trip to Paris.

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COMMENT: Fresh US sanctions and OFZ primary market ban a global non-event, but sanctions possibly now entrenched almost indefinitely

The US took a mild path for the time being with the new sanctions on Russia’s debt. Sanctioning the primary market activity of OFZs for US entities has little impact on Russia and international financial markets.

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Bulgaria’s Gerb to nominate Daniel Mitov for next PM amid lack of coalition partners

Boyko Borissov, the leader of the Gerb party, will nominate Daniel Mitov, former foreign affairs minister, as Bulgaria's prime minister, assuming a coalition led by Gerb can be formed.

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News

Supporters of jailed anti-corruption activist and opposition politician Alexei Navalny called for the next big anti-government demonstration on April 21, the same day as Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a State of the Nation Speech.

Since Russian residential developer Samolet Group listed on the Moscow Exchange (MOEX) in October last year with a valuation of $721mn a lot has happened. Surprisingly most of it has been good.

Social media was buzzing with speculation after Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko said that he was going to announce a “principled” decision of the last quarter century this week on April 17.

Jailed anti-corruption activist and opposition politician Alexei Navalny is close to death as he goes into his 19th day of a hunger strike in prison and the Russian authorities try to ban his organisation as "extremist."

After previously denying it, Azerbaijan now says that Armenia fired Russian-made rockets during last year’s war. And now they’re trying to make things difficult for Moscow.

Tech

In late March Sber took control of a Russian video creation start-up called Movika.

A pool of individual investors has put RUB431mn into Beri Zaryad, a Moscow-based smartphone charging service.

State-run Kazakhtelecom, Kazakhstan's largest telco, plans to produce more of its own content, seeing it as a promising direction of development at a time when regular telecom services are no longer as profitable as they used to be.

In 2020, the total VC and PE investment volume in Ukrainian or Ukrainian-founded tech companies reached a record high $571mn, according to a new report from AVentures Capital

Russia’s internet regulator Roskomnadzor has extended the deadline until May 15 for Twitter to delete content the government objects to or face a ban, the watchdog said on April 6.

Opinion

The US took a mild path for the time being with the new sanctions on Russia’s debt. Sanctioning the primary market activity of OFZs for US entities has little impact on Russia and international financial markets.

For financial market investors, Russia is currently in the same basket as Turkey and Ukraine, but only on a temporary basis.

Perhaps the most important thing for the Russian leadership in this episode was to prevent the need to actually go to war against Ukraine in the future. Going for overkill in terms of military manoeuvres now prevents actual war later.

In 1Q21, ruble weakness was caused not just by political tensions, but also by a disappointing trade balance and resumed preference for foreign assets by residents. ING has downgraded its mid-year ruble expectations to USD/RUB75.

Ukraine has announced that it will not hold further peace talks in Minsk within the framework of the Trilateral Contact Group.

Data

Analysts expect headline CPI to hover around 3% in 2021, above the central bank’s inflation target of 2.5%.

Better performance in February and strong growth in civil engineering failed to counter sluggish January.

Resurgence in Turkey’s coronavirus outbreak looks set to hinder flag carrier’s attempts to stage a recovery.

Russian industrial output posted 1.1% year-on-year growth in March 2021, according to RosStat statistics agency data, making the first y/y growth in a year.

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) raised Ukraine’s prime rate by a full percentage point, to 7.5% on April 16, more than analysts had anticipated, after inflationary pressures surged in March.

Features

The health minister then drank the concoction at a press conference.

The Russian ruble has been through some wild swings this year as it has almost completely decoupled from the price of oil and is almost entirely dependent on the ebbs and flows of geopolitical tension.

Regina Maria overtook rival MedLife to become the biggest player in the Romanian private medical services market. Private equity backer Mid Europa Partners plans to build it up further.

Slavi Trifonov is the favourite to become Bulgaria’s next prime minister while Boyko Borissov is consigned to the dustbin of history. But are the two politicians so different?

It’s ten years since Fondul Proprietatea listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. bne IntelliNews looks at what’s next, including the upcoming IPO of its largest portfolio company, Hidroelectrica.

Blogs

Five years ago I wrote an op-ed calling for a new pan-European security treaty. The piece opened with these words: “We are in the middle of the worst political crisis since the end of the Cold War and there is a very real possibility of war."

Anxious times for a central bank with a net FX position of around minus $60bn.

After voters left PM Boyko Borissov out in the cold in the April 4 general election, the possibilities for forming a new government are slim and a new snap election is the most likely outcome.

Thigh deep in the economic quagmire, Erdogan regime at least hears that as things stand Europe can live with it, while Biden seems unlikely to opt for a ruckus.

Low vacancy rate to drive further development of Romania’s industrial real estate market that CBRE expects to grow by 50% within five years.

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The world was hit by a global pandemic and an oil shock in 2020 but as 2021 gets underway the economies in Emerging Europe are bou....

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