MOSCOW – Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed an order on presentation to the State Duma of a bill, which will unify requirements for analysis of credit organisation’s sustainability, the governmental press service reported on Saturday.
“The bill is aimed at clearer requirements for participation of banks in the system of insuring deposits, as well as provisions, which ban reception of monetary funds from individuals and opening and processing of banking operations,” the press service said in its statement.
MOSCOW – Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will hold talks with his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic in Moscow on April 10, the government press service reported on Saturday.
Dacic will be in Russia on a visit on April 9-11 at the invitation of the Russian head of government. “Medvedev and Dacic will discuss key issues of bilateral cooperation in the trade, economic, energy, investment, humanitarian, cultural and other fields,” the press service said.
Inter-governmental and inter-departmental documents will be signed after the talks, the press service said.
MOSCOW – The Russian government ordered the Foreign Ministry to sign an agreement with Fiji on abolishment of visas.
The government approved a draft agreement with Fiji on mutual abolishment of visa requirements and ordered the foreign ministry to sign in the name of the government the said agreement following further discussions with the Fiji side.
MOSCOW – Gazprom and Lithuania hope to settle bilateral disagreements by July 31, according to a statement following a working meeting between Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and Lithuania’s Prime Minster Algirdas Butkievicius.
“The parties agreed to enter into consultations with a view to achieving agreements on the entire spectrum of cooperation issues by July 31, 2013,” Gazprom said.
ALMATY – Leaders of Kazakhstan and China Nursultan Nazarbayev and Xi Jinping during a meeting in Beijing agreed to raise the trade turnover between the two countries by 2015 to 40 billion dollars and to have special consultations to improve bilateral trade, Kazakhstan’s presidential press service said on Saturday.
The two presidents highlighted the growth of the trade and economic cooperation between their countries. In 2012, the trade turnover between Kazakhstan and China grew by 12.5 percent to 24 billion dollars, the press release reads.
ST. PETERSBURG – Large landing ships of the Pacific Fleet – The Admiral Nevelsky and The Peresvet in late May will enter the Syrian port of Tartus, where the Russian Navy’s logistics station is located, General Staff of the Russian Navy told Itar-Tass on Saturday.
MOSCOW – Moscow doubts Moldova’s bill on the language policy complies with the democratic norms, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
Moscow “watches the new aggravation of the social and political discussion in the Repubic of Moldova on the linguistics topic, which followed an initiative from the Liberal Party to replace the Moldovan state language with the Romanian one, and concerned about the independent period’s infringement of rights of national minorities, including Russians, who live in that country.”
MOSCOW – More than 20,000 Muslims from Russia will go on pilgrimage known as the Hajj to Saudi Arabia this autumn. The 2013 Hajj quota for Russian Muslims will be 20,500 people under a document signed by the Saudi Arabian side, Damir Gizatullin, the first vice-chairman of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of European Russia (DUMER), said after paying a working trip to Saudi Arabia as part of the Hajj mission.
TBILISI – A second group of specialists from Russia’s consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor has inspected thirty five Georgian wineries to have arrived at rather positive conclusions, the head of the Georgian Wine Agency, Levan Davitashvili, told the media in Tbilisi on Friday.
During their five-day visit to Tbilisi Russian specialists visited 35 wineries and several wine laboratories, he said.
DUSHANBE – Tajikistan’s new political party will unite representatives of the businesses.
“Our objective is economic independence of the country, where we shall be attracting the emerging class of small and medium businesses, and work of new effective programmes,” Head of the coordinating council and chairman of the Association of Entrepreneurs and Industrialists Zaid Saidov said.
HANNOVER – Russia is open to mutually advantageous cooperation, and its participation in Hannover Messe is designed to demonstrate this, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the ceremony to open the world’s biggest industrial fair on Sunday.
“Our large-scale exposition here, at Hannover Messe, is one of the most important events of the Russian-German cross-year,” he stressed. “That gave us a possibility to demonstrate the present day and the future of Russia’s industry and science, confirm our intention to closely cooperate with German and other partners,” Putin stressed.
HANNOVER – Visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged German business people to invest in the Russian economy.
“Despite a global turmoil and financial crisis, our country has maintained positive tendencies in its development,” the Russian leader said at the ceremony of opening Hannover Messe. “The investment climate is improving, and the World Bank’s Doing Business survey ranked Russia eight places higher (to 112),” he stressed.
According to Putin, last year GDP growth in Russia was 3.4 percent, and the also country has one of the lowest unemployment figures. “A moderate amount of the state debt, a stably high level of gold and foreign currency reserves are a good basis for feeling confident. Foreign trade grows, and in 2012 it amounted to 865 billion dollars (845 billion dollars in 2011). Trade balance surplus was 195 billion dollars last year,” the Russian leader said.
HANNOVER – Russian President Vladimir Putin forecasts that inflation rate in Russia this year will exceed six percent.
“Last year inflation was 6.2–6.3 percent, and we know already that this year it will be a bit higher,” he said.
HANNOVER - - Russia’s GDP will grow no more than 3.2 percent this year, Minister for Economic Development Andrei Belousov told reporters on Sunday.
“The results of the first quarter were worse - practically a zero growth,” he said. That is why, “most likely growth forecasts will be under three percent under a conservative scenario,” the minister said. He specified that the optimistic scenario envisages a GDP growth of 3.2 percent. Belousov also said that earlier, the forecast for 2013 was at 3.6 percent.
HANNOVER – The Russian government will shortly expand privatization plans, Russian Minister of Economic Development Andrei Belousov told reporters on Sunday.
“In order to decrease borrowings, we will be increasing amounts of privatization, and privatization issues will be specified at the next government session,” the minister said.
HANNOVER – The Moscow region expects to attract new investors and will present its large-scale project “Rossiya” Park at Hannover Messe, the world’s biggest industrial fair that will be held from April 8 to 12, region’s minister for investments and innovations Gleb Bondarenko told reporters on Sunday.
The region will also present its possibilities as to investments into the housing services and utilities and modern technologies for processing garbage. According to Bondarenko, the region’s participation in the fair will make it possible to attract potential investors, establish ties with partners and study international experience.
MOSCOW – A group of Russian inspectors will make a series of observation flights over the territories of Romania and Hungary on April 7-13 while a joint group of French and U.S. inspectors will fly over the territory of Russia over the same period, a source at the Russian Defense Ministry press service told Itar-Tass.
MOSCOW – The World Health Day on Sunday is devoted to hypertension.
“Globally cardiovascular disease accounts for approximately 17 million deaths a year, nearly one third of the total. Of these, complications of hypertension account for 9.4 million deaths worldwide every year. Hypertension is responsible for at least 45% of deaths due to heart disease, and 51% of deaths due to stroke, the World Health Organisation reports.”
In Russia, about 38 percent of the population suffer from high blood pressure.
ALMATY – Kazakhstan is ready to support to the utmost settlement of the situation around Iran’s ‘nuclear dossier’ and considers as positive the past round of negotiations, the republic’s foreign ministry said on Sunday.
“Kazakhstan has been and remains a persistent supporter of nuclear non-proliferation and this country is ready to continue supporting to the utmost settlement of the situation around Iran’s nuclear programme by diplomatic means in the interests of stability and secutify in the region and in the world,” the foreign ministry’s document reads.
KIEV – Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovich signed an order issuing a pardon for the country’s former Interior Ministry Yuri Lutsenko, the presidential press service reported on Sunday.
The president has pardoned six convicted, including former Minister of Environment Georgy Filipchuk.
Earlier, Ukraine’s parliamentary human rights ombudsperson Valeriya Lutkovskaya addressed the president for pardon.
BRUSSELS – The pardon for Ukraine’s former Interior Ministry is an important step for signing of the Ukraine-EU association agreement, a representative of the European Commission told Itar-Tass on Sunday.
KIEV – Kiev’s police report the opposition’s rally in central Kiev features over five thousand participants on Sunday. Leaders of opposing parties Batkivshchyna, UDAR and Svoboda - Arseni Yatsenyuk, Vitaly Klichko and Oleg Tyagnibok - are also in the square.
The country’s former Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko, who was released earlier on Sunday following the presidential order, is not expected to participate in the rally.
The meeting is a part of a two-month action, organised by the opposition, which slogan is Ukraine, Rise! It started on March 14 with rallies in Western Ukraine. The culmination of the action should be the opposition’s rally in central Kiev in mid-May.
KIEV – An opposition rally in central Kiev on Sunday ended with the passing of a joint resolution. The document contains eight demands, including the resignation of the government of Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov’s, an election in the Ukrainian capital in June and the release of all political inmates, including ex-Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko.
Sergei Sobolev from Batkivshchina said the opposition also seeks to prevent a referendum in Ukraine on extending the presidential powers of Viktor Yanukovich, as well as to abolish “an anti-national pension reform”.
MINSK – A monument to Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II, who died in 2008, was unveiled in the Belarussian city of Vitebsk on Sunday, the day when Orthodox Christians mark one of the main Christian holidays - the Annunciation.
The monument was built close to the Holy Dormition Cathedral at the request of believers and the initiative of the public. “The unveiling of the monument is a sign of our people’s belief, the sign of spiritual unification of all Orthodox peoples, who love each other and the whole world,” Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk, the Patriarchal Exarch of all Belarus, said at the opening ceremony.