Showing posts with label Russian economy. Show all posts
Russian 'Disney-style' theme park to replace polluting factory near Lake Baikal
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| Baikal Pulp Mill (RIA Novosti) |
The shores of the world’s largest lake will soon open doors to a new Disney-themed amusement park and a surrounding nature reserve. It will be built on the site of the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill which was once a major polluter of the lake.
The park will be called 'Sacred Russia’ and will feature a nature reserve, and in the center an amusement park, Izvestia reports. An education center, hotel complex, academic and research center, and historical Russian architectural monuments- for example the Moscow Kremlin and the Kazan Cathedral- will also be erected.
It is anticipated the new project will boost tourism by 2 million visitors per year.
The bidding for construction of the park is expected to be begin soon, and the project must be approved this year, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources. The complex is slated for completion by 2017.
The Baikal amusement park complex will be financed through Vnesheconombank, a state-owned bank, but the amount of investment is still unknown.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visited the town of Baikalsk, situated on the southeastern shore of the lake last week. He explained to a local audience the park will create about 2,500 jobs and draw in tourist dollasr, thus neutralizing any negative economic effects of the plant closing.
"The Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill will be closed, and there is no turning back," said Medvedev in the Irkutsk region.
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| View of Lake Baikal. (RIA Novosti/Anton Denisov) |
Medvedev assured local residents it wouldn’t be a case of ‘good for the environment, bad for me’. “People need normal jobs and normal salaries. The factory guaranteed work and money, but now, the overall development task is to make the Baikal region an economic, as well as a tourist zone. This is our joint task,” Medvedev said at the gathering.
The government will allocate about $91.7 million (3 billion roubles) for environmental clean up of the pulp and paper plant and restore the surrounding area, and another $428 million (14 billion roubles) will be used to close the plant.
The bankrupt mill
In 1961, the same year Khrushchev famously declared that communism would be built in 20 years, construction of the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill began and it successfully produced bleached pulp for over 40 years.
The paper mill became known as one of the largest pollutants of the pristine Lake Baikal.
In 2008, at the request of regional authorities, production of bleached pulp was suspended and the mill switched to producing less profitable unbleached pulp using closed-water cycle technology that didn’t release any sewage into the lake. After the switch, the plant became highly unprofitable.
On February 27, 2013, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich announced the decision to close the mill, and to move production to other plants. In 2010, the Lake Baikal plant was on the verge of bankruptcy, and in 2013, Alfa Bank bought the company's debt, along with Oleg Deripaska, owner of Basic Element, an energy asset group. Deripsaska said he doesn't plan to invest in the project.
Environmentalists are pleased at the prospect of replacing the old mill with the theme park, as they estimate the plant generated over 40,000 tonnes of chemical waste in its lifetime.
The decision to close the plant is supported by UNESCO, who are concerned with efforts to preserve the lake.
Market Buzz: Calm day after a roller coaster week
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| AFP Photo / Justin Sullivan |
With a lack of drivers and falling oil prices Russian stocks are likely to start off the week lower. Russian exchanges ended Friday’s session with minor gains, in an attempt to rebound after a two-day fall. The MICEX added 0.14 percent to close at 1298.89 points, while the RTS index advanced 0.19 percent to 1245.72 points.
On Friday Europe’s stock markets extended losses into a fourth straight day with investors’ sentiment driven by the prospect of scaling back the quantitative easing program in the US and political uncertainty in Greece.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index dropped 1.2 percent to 280.40, ending the week at the lowest level in 2013.
The UK’s FTSE 100 index slid 0.7 percent to 6,116.17, with a weekly drop totaling 3.1 percent. Germany’s DAX 30 index fell 1.8 percent to 7,789.24 closing 4.2 percent lower on the week. France’s CAC 40 index shed 1.1 percent to 3,658.04 and ended the week with a 3.9 percent loss. On Wall Street the US stocks ended Friday mostly higher. The Dow and S&P 500 managed to put an end to their two-day long series of heavy losses. Investors however remained broadly concerned with the planned changes to the Federal Reserve's monetary policy later this year.
Since Wednesday’s statement of the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke crowning the FOMC’s two-day policy meeting, markets have been very unstable. Bernanke said the Fed plans to "moderate the monthly pace of purchases later this year” as the US economy is still vulnerable, but shows signs of steady improvement.
Many experts agree that the most likely time to start pulling out of the bond purchases is September. The Dow Jones industrial average added 0.28 percent, to end the session at 14,799.40. The S&P 500 added 0.27 percent, to finish at 1,592.43. The tech-rich NASDAQ Composite lost 0.22 percent, to close at 2,257.25.
In the week ahead, investors eyes will be on US data on durable goods orders, jobless claims and consumer confidence for signs that the economic recovery is on track.
Asian stocks fell on Monday on a disappointing move from China, which let the Chinese equivalent of Libor – the Shibor, the Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate soar in a bid to curb a booming underground lending industry.
In Hong Kong the Hang Seng fell 1.4 percent to 19,978.90 dropping for a fifth straight session close to nine-month lows. The Shanghai Composite plunged 3 percent to 2,010.77. Japan's Nikkei 225 index went down 0.3 percent to 13,194.10. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slid 1.3 percent at 4,678.90. Benchmarks in Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines also fell. Taiwan rose. Oil prices are on course to extend their falls. Brent crude is currently trading at $100.2 down 0.6 percent, while WTI is off 0.5 percent at $93.2.
FB & Twitter threat: Social networks cause $10bn damage to Russian economy
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| AFP Photo / Alain Jocard |
A new study has estimated time wasted on social networks at the Russian workplace costs the economy $10 billion.
Over 57 million Russians are registered on social networks, and according to the SomScore survey, users frequented the sites 25.6 minutes per day, or 12.8 hours per month, including while at work.
The heightened activity of Russians on social networks has spilled over into the workplace, and is reportedly costing the economy $10 billion.
In the past year, the Russian economy has lost between 281.7 and 311.5 billion roubles due to workers distracted by social networks and inefficiency, analysts at FBK, a Moscow-based auditing and consulting firm, estimated.
The range of precisely how much money was lost is large, because data varies on size, wages, and many other company specific details.
"Of course, this is a rough estimate. In order to give exact figures, it is necessary to get detailed audience research of social networks, data on time spent in them, representatives of each segment of the audience, the data on the amount of wages of employees and so on. Nevertheless, our estimate gives an indication of the scale of the losses,” the director of FBK, Igor Nikolaev, told Vedomosti.
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| RIA Novosti / Mikhail Fomichev |
According to calculations by FBK, in 2012, each ‘over-active’
social networker wasted 53.1 hours on social sites instead
of work tasks.
According to Nikolaev, some companies, to a degree, pay workers to surf the internet. In some industries there is a heavy overlap between work-related tasks and social media sites in public relations, journalism, and marketing and advertising, which reach their audience via social media.
If workers take a small break from their task and surf a social media site, they can easily be distracted for up to 20 minutes before returning to their work.
Recreational use of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, at the workplace can be monitored by employers, and there have been cases of dismissal of social media addicted employees who spend more time surfing the internet rather than working on assignments.
The $10 billion wasted by Russians is only a fraction of the estimated $650 billion wasted in productivity in the US.
An infographic by LearnStuff claims active social media users cost their individual company $4,452 per year. The survey showed Americans are distracted every 10 minutes, and take 20 minutes to get back on track.
The same survey found that Americans spend twice as much time on Facebook than they do exercising.
Russian privatization changes to keep Rosneft state-owned
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The Russian government plans to hold back on the privatization of several major state enterprises and to retain control of the Rosneft oil company, according to the Vedomosti business daily. The government now intends to divest itself of only 19.5% in Rosneft despite earlier plans for a higher percentage. The daily quotes the new government privatization program until 2016 and several sources close to the matter. The head of Rosneft Igor Sechin has repeatedly spoken out against the privatization of the company. In December 2011 while Deputy Prime Minister Sechin warned Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that if privatized Rosneft would not be able to work on the Arctic shelf and will pay less taxes, the paper reports. The Russian government owns more than 75 percent of Rosneft, and Britain's BP owns 19 percent. The previous privatization plan which ends this year saw the government completely privatize 12 large state-owned companies, including Rosneft, and a reduction of its share in seven others. According to the new plan the government will retain control of RusHydro and Zarubezhneft, that were planned to be privatized by 2016. Privatisation of banks have also been revised. The state will relinquish its stake in VTB as previously thought. The sale of the Agricultural Bank and Rosagroleasing, will be transformed into development institutions, Vedomosti reports. The privatization of a quarter of Russian Railways will be postponed for two years from 2014 to 2016. The government has also decided to privatize only about 25 percent of the United Shipbuilding Corporation instead of initially planned half of the company, the business daily reports. Plans to sell Transneft and Inter RAO remained unchanged. The new assets offered for privatization include Vnukovo airport and landline provider Rostelecom.
