MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia hit its foreign currency borrowing target for 2012 when it drew strong demand for $7 billion in Eurobonds on Wednesday, in the biggest hard currency denominated issue from an emerging market country since 2000.

Russia was able to sell at the bottom of its previously-announced yield guidance, indicating strong demand from investors, who are presently attracted by the country’s strong oil earnings.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s economic recovery is relatively weak and its level of investment inadequate, the World Bank said on Tuesday in a biannual economic report that urged Russia to accelerate structural reforms to improve its poor investment climate.

The report noted said Russia’s recent economic growth remained resilient and was characterised by robust expansion, with 3.5 percent growth forecast this year after growth of 4.3 percent last year.

MOSCOW, March 22 (Reuters) – An overhaul of Russia’s
domestic government bond market is poised to attract tens of
billions of dollars in foreign cash, as Russia seeks to make its
paper accessible to heavyweight Western institutional investors.

By enabling its locally issued treasury bonds – known as
OFZs – to be settled through international clearing houses,
Russia is in the process of sweeping away regulatory barriers
that have kept most foreign investors away.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin’s emphatic win in Sunday’s presidential election has come at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars in spending promises that could sow the seeds of an economic crisis in Russia before his six-year term is out.

Putin, who received 64 percent of the vote with nearly all ballots counted, shored up his base by throwing money at everything from nuclear missiles to kindergartens, making the overburdened budget more dependent than ever on oil prices.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin’s emphatic win in Sunday’s presidential election has come at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars in spending promises that could sow the seeds of an economic crisis in Russia before his six-year term is out.

Putin, who received 64 percent of the vote with nearly all ballots counted, shored up his base by throwing money at everything from nuclear missiles to kindergartens, making the overburdened budget more dependent than ever on oil prices.

MOSCOW, Feb 21 (Reuters) – Russia is scrapping plans
to collect tax on corporate Eurobonds placed before Jan. 1,
2013, following a storm of protest from major Russian companies
and banks who warned that the move threatened seriously to dent
fragile investor confidence.

Russia’s finance ministry said late on Monday that it is
dropping the idea and may apply only a partial levy to papers
issued from next January onward.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin has ordered Russia’s state firms to clean up their act, but without fundamental reforms he may only scratch the surface of endemic graft and conflicts of interest that tar the country’s bloated national champions.

Such reforms would require Putin to dismantle an entrenched system of corruption, patronage and cronyism, in which many of his own allies are enmeshed through their ties with the state-owned giants that are the focus of the crackdown.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin has ordered Russia’s state firms to clean up their act, but without fundamental reforms he may only scratch the surface of endemic graft and conflicts of interest that tar the country’s bloated national champions.

Such reforms would require Putin to dismantle an entrenched system of corruption, patronage and cronyism, in which many of his own allies are enmeshed through their ties with the state-owned giants that are the focus of the crackdown.

MOSCOW, Feb 3 (Reuters) – Russia’s central bank held
interest rates on Friday
and signalled a steady hand in the months ahead as it weighs
risks to inflation and growth and as the country elects a new
president.

Although inflation has hit a post-Soviet low of 4.1 percent
on delays to increases in household utilities bills and a
stronger rouble, price pressures are expected to kick in from
mid-year, making it tough to meet the bank’s 6 percent target.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Winning Russia’s March presidential election could be the easy part for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has called for a “decisive tax manoeuvre” to put the country’s increasingly oil-dependent public finances on a more sustainable footing.

Although Russia, the world’s largest energy producer, ran a fiscal surplus last year thanks to strong oil prices, the high and rising price at which the budget balances poses the real risk of a fiscal crisis in the next six-year presidential term.