Russia Briefing Now Accessible in Mobile App

Free app brings Russia Briefing to your fingertips

Dec. 16 – The brand new Asia Briefing mobile application brings the latest business news and foreign investment insights from Russia Briefing web site right to your fingertips.

The free app integrates with legal and tax regulatory updates from Dezan Shira & Associates, along with China, India, Vietnam, Mongolia Briefings, and 2point6billon.com (for emerging Asia). With hourly updates, it helps you stay on top of Asia’s dynamic investment environments. Read the rest of this entry »

Details on Russia’s Real Estate Deals Soon Available Online

Nov. 16 – The Federal Service for State Registration, Cadaster and Cartography, known as Rosregister, will launch a new online service providing information about each real estate deal that has been made in every Russian region.

Information about all registered real estate deals since 1999 will also be published in the new portal. For example, by some estimates, 17 million real estate deals were made in Russia last year. Read the rest of this entry »

Russia Set to Return to Deep Space after 15 Years

Nov. 9 – Russia is preparing for a historic return to deep space with the launch of the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft on Wednesday on an ambitious and risky three-year US$163 million mission to bring back a soil sample from the Red Planet.

The launch is scheduled for 12:16 a.m. Moscow time this Wednesday (20.16 GMT Tuesday), Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) reports. The Zenit-2SB rocket with the Phobos-Grunt mission is set to launch from the Baikonur Space Center located in Kazakhstan. Read the rest of this entry »

South Koreans to Energize 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi

Nov. 4 – Russia and South Korea are teaming up to develop a tourism hub in the mountainous North Caucasus region and Korean investors have signed on to contribute US$1 billion towards the US$30 billion project.

The state-run OJSC Northern Caucasus Resorts Company (NCRC) signed a joint venture agreement with Korean Western Power Co. (KOWEPO) and CHT Korea within the framework of the 2nd Russia-Korea Dialog International Forum in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.

The joint venture will produce and provide energy in the Northern Caucasus. The first stage will see five coal-fired power plants built in energy-deficient regions, with one in Sochi’s Krasnodar region, host of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Read the rest of this entry »

Walt Disney to Air in Russia

Nov. 1 – Walt Disney Co., owner of ABC television, has agreed to buy a 49 percent stake in Russia’s Seven TV network owned by United TV Holdings and will rename it the Disney Channel. The deal was announced at the meeting between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President and CEO of Walt Disney Co. Robert Iger.

“International expansion is a key strategic priority for our company and Disney Channel has proven to be invaluable in building the Disney brand around the world,” Robert Iger said in a statement. Read the rest of this entry »

Siemens to Become One of the Biggest Investor in Russian Economy

Oct. 19 – German engineering and industrial giant Siemens AG will spend €1 billion (US$1.37 billion) on projects in Russia over the next three years, Peter Löscher, head of the board, said on Monday.

Russia’s energy sector will get the bulk of investment – around €700 million, with €400 million to be invested in a St. Petersburg-based joint venture created between Siemens and Russian firm Power Machines to be spent on gas-fired turbine construction and servicing them. The German company will hold 65 percent in the joint venture. Read the rest of this entry »

German SAP to Invest in Russian and CIS Markets

Sept. 23 – German software developer SAP AG, one of the world’s leading vendors of business management solutions, intends to invest a total of 1 billion euros (US$1.3 billion) in its business in Russia and other CIS countries by 2015, business daily Vedomosti reported, citing President of SAP EMEA Franck Cohen.

The German global software corporation envisages investments in the development of mobile applications, cloud computing, and expansion in the banking and public sector, as well as in the market for small and medium-sized enterprises. SAP aims to double the number of its 700 employees in Russia. Read the rest of this entry »

Russian DST to Invest US$180 Mln in Chinese Internet Startups

Sept. 5 – Russian venture capitalist Yuri Milner, together with American angel investor Ron Conway, will invest US$180 million in Beijing-based Innovation Works. Milner’s efforts to launch the same high-tech investment firm in Russia hasn’t yet been crowned with success.

In a press release, Innovation Works (which was founded by former Google China head Kai-Fu), announced that it has also raised money from WI Harper, Silicon Valley Bank, Baillie Gifford, Sequoia Capital, Singapore Telecom, Mediatek, Foxconn, New Oriental, SAP, Bertelsmann, Motorola and other international investors. It is uncertain how much each investor put into the fund. Read the rest of this entry »

PayPal to Enter Russian e-Payments Market

Aug. 26 – American payment system PayPal will begin carrying out money transfers in Russia and the Ukraine starting from the end of September, the company said in a statement.

The PayPal web site has published new money transfer tariffs that will come into force on September 24.

The fee for sending money to Russia will range from 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent depending on the country you are sending it from. Sending money within Russia will cost 1 percent. Read the rest of this entry »

Russian Companies Continue to Expand Abroad

May 17 – Russia’s third biggest mobile phone company VimpelCom has agreed to a US$420 million deal to buy New Telephone Company (NTC) from South Korea’s KT Corp and Summit Telecom Global Management, Sumitomo Corporation’s subsidiary.

VimpelCom said it planned to close the 90 percent acquisition within four weeks. After the acquisition, the company is planning on launching a mandatory buyout offer according to Russian law to purchase the remaining 10 percent of the NTC shares. The completion of the deal is expected in the third quarter of 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

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