Western bankers are sticking with Russia, and why don’t the Germans confiscate Russian assets. Oleg Makarenko Posting in CHAT: Russia 1. Western banks remaining in Russia are now making good profits: a prize for independence. The US and the European Union are shouting against apostates, but “Bazil listens and eats” (link): Last year, the largest European banks that continue to operate in Russia paid four times more taxes than before the start of the special. military. operations, writes the Financial Times. “The largest Western banks remaining in Russia paid the Kremlin more than 800 million euros in taxes last year, four times more than pre-war levels,” the publication says. We are talking about Raiffeisen Bank International, Unicredit, ING, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo and OTP. As follows from their reporting, in 2023 their total profit amounted to more than three billion euros - three times more than in 2021. As a result, they paid about 800 million euros in taxes, compared to 200 million in 2021. In addition, more than half of the payments came from the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank. Having analyzed the bank's vacancies in Russia, the publication concluded that it has “ambitious plans” to “significantly expand its active client base.” The publication calls the payment of taxes by European banks an example of how foreign companies remaining in Russia help it maintain financial stability, despite Western sanctions. At the same time, foreign creditors benefited not only from rising interest rates, but also from sanctions against Russian banks, the FT believes. “These measures deprived competitors of access to international payment systems and increased the attractiveness of Western banks for clients in the country,” the article explains. Indeed, Raiffeisen is doing so well in Russia that the Russian branch for this Austrian bank is more profitable than all the branches in all other countries combined. Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs (link): Over the past three years, the Austrian banking group Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) has earned more profit from its Russian division than from all its other branches around the world. This was reported by the British newspaper Financial Times. The publication also predicts that the Russian and Belarusian divisions of the group together will bring Raiffeisen about 1.2 billion in net profit in 2024, which will amount to 69% of the group’s total net profit. For comparison, the economic activities of other RBI branches in total will bring only 500 million in net profit, the publication writes, citing analysts from the financial corporation Citigroup. The Americans, of course, put a word into the wheels of the activities of Austrian bankers in Russia (link): On May 6, the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) received a letter signed by the American Deputy Minister of Finance Wally Adeyemo. , which states that the bank may have been closed due to operations in Russia by the American financial system. Mr. Adeyemo's letter expressed concern about the upcoming agreement for RBI to buy a stake in the Austrian construction concern Strabag for $1.5 billion. Through this agreement, as reported by Reuters, the Austrian financial group wanted to gain control over the stake of Russian businessman Oleg. Deripaska, who is under US sanctions. The US Treasury letter was sent on May 6, and on May 8, the RBI abandoned the deal. Despite this, according to a Reuters source, US authorities remain concerned about Raiffeisen Bank's business in Russia. According to the agency, the letter is the most serious warning to the RBI. 2. Switzerland counted its losses due to the theft of Russian assets, in which they participated in 2022, and timidly raised the dirty banner of neutrality from the ground (link): The Federal Council (government) of Switzerland refused to help the Swiss. G7 in search of frozen assets Russia. The Federal Department of Economics, Education and Research (EAER) said the country has good cooperation with international partners in implementing sanctions against Russia, especially at the technical level. In this regard, the department indicated, Bern now does not see the need to formally join a special international group to search for assets of sanctioned Russian repo (Russian elites, proxies and oligarchs). “If membership is in the interests of Switzerland in the future, the Federal Council may reconsider the situation,” the EAER admitted. Switzerland considered joining the group searching for Russian assets to be incompatible with neutrality. Of course, it’s already late, but still: the Swiss parliament even demands the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions. Blogger Pavel Shipilin writes (link): The largest party in the Swiss parliament, the Democratic Union of the Center (UDC), demands the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the country if they are not adopted by the UN Security Council. . “No non-military coercive measures (sanctions) without an obligation under public international law (UN Security Council),” the UDC said in a statement. If Switzerland were still a neutral state, there would be nothing impressive on this front. But since the United States wasted no time and over the past decades took away the keys from all European politicians, including Bern, such an anti-American attack from the parliamentary majority looks, of course, unexpected. I think the US simply did not consider it necessary to bribe the Swiss parliament. This is what the deputies reminded. 3. Even in Germany, which seemed completely subservient to the United States, at the last moment they refused to appropriate Russian assets. In addition to the obvious reluctance to once again confirm their reputation as thieves, the Germans also have an additional incentive (link). The fact is that the confiscation of Russian property under the pretext that Russia is conducting military operations in Ukraine is a serious argument (precedent) in favor of the then property confiscated by Germany itself, and the fact that the Germans are paying reparations for the Second World War, which Right Now The Poles ($1.300 billion) and the Greeks ($0.300 billion) are demanding from them. It is clear that the Germans can always say “No”, but the Greeks, whose economy was completely destroyed by the Euroreich, are theoretically capable of confiscating large amounts of German property into the country. Oleg Makarenkohttps://dzen.ru Source link Source link
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A wage revolution in Russia, a record shortage of employees and record staff turnover. Oleg Makarenko Posting in CHAT: Russia 1. Labor market experts believe that the current wage growth in Russia will be sustainable and will not reverse (link): “The wage revolution” is beginning in Russia “right before our eyes,” says TsMAKP economist Dmitry Belousov. High payments to military personnel set new benchmarks for the market and accelerate the depletion of citizens' readiness for cheap labor. Military personnel receiving high payments during combat operations will not return to their previous jobs with much lower compensation, Belousov noted. ...at the end of 2023, real wages grew by 7.8%, and although the growth rate from quarter to quarter was unstable, it exceeded the overall economic dynamics (real GDP grew by 3.6%). Real incomes of the population increased by 5.4%, consumption of goods and services - by 5.9%, writes Belousov. At the same time, there is no doubt that even after the end of hostilities this factor for the labor market will remain, the economist points out. “Military personnel who received 200 thousand rubles. per month or more, they simply will not return to the “old” job for 50-60 thousand rubles. per month and, obviously, will look for a job that corresponds to their new social status,” In his opinion, so far, forecasts of accelerated wage growth have been confirmed (link): Russians are offered higher wages. In job vacancies published in March, employers indicated wages were 12.7% higher than in January. This data is provided by the Bank of Russia. report on the economy of the region (it was analyzed by Izvestia). In March 2024, the average offered salary reached about 64 thousand rubles, as follows from the graph in the Central Bank report. This means that half of the vacancies indicate a lower income. Indicated, and the other half is more. For comparison, in the first three months of 2023 the figure remained virtually unchanged: it grew by about 4%. The main reason for this dynamics is the lack of personnel, the Central Bank notes. .And this year it has intensified. At the same time, there are too many factors influencing the labor market to make any accurate forecast. One of the most significant is inflation, which compensates for a significant part of nominal wage growth. 2. The scale of the personnel shortage in Russia is officially recognized as a record (link): Based on the results of January-March, the supply of personnel in Russian companies reached a minimum in the entire history of observations. As TASS reports, citing statistics from the Central Bank (CB), the shortage of personnel in the country has increased to its maximum. In the first three months of 2024, the share of employees of domestic companies fell to minus 28.2 points. This figure is the lowest since 1998, when the regulator began monitoring staff shortages. A labor shortage is observed in all key sectors of the Russian economy. At the same time, the problem has reached its greatest scale in the manufacturing sector, which produces products for investment and consumer purposes. As the crisis worsened, some businesses took emergency measures. They were forced to “either limit production growth or encourage staff to work overtime for additional pay,” the regulator concluded. 3. Due to a record shortage of employees, employers are offering more and more attractive vacancies, and this, in turn, leads to record staff turnover, as more and more people change jobs for higher paying ones (link): According to the results of 2023, staffing in Russia reached a record level in the entire post-Soviet history. This conclusion was reached by the deputy head of the Center for Labor Research at the Higher School of Economics (HSE), Rostislav Kapelyushnikov, in his work “Escalation of vacancies in the Russian labor market (dynamics, structure, triggers),” writes Kommersant. Gross staff turnover reached 65 percent. It is understood as the sum of employment and attrition rates, which reflect the ratio of the number of hired and fired workers to the average number of employees of the enterprise. The data is taken from Rosstat materials, which collects them from employers. Before the 2008 crisis, gross labor turnover fluctuated around 60-63 percent. In the 2010s, it dropped to 57 percent. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, that figure dropped to 52 percent but then began to rise. As Kapelyushnikov notes, these figures indicate that up to a third of employees change jobs every year. By the way, this is called “capitalism”. Entrepreneurs are creating more jobs, there is a shortage of workers, and employee salaries are rising. Business efficiency also increases because bad managers do not have enough money to pay high salaries. As a result, both household income and labor productivity increase. Oleg Makarenkohttps://dzen.ru Source link Source link
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The boom of electronics in Russia, our bearing group and the growth of electrical installations. Oleg Makarenko Posting in CHAT: Russia 1. The electronics industry in Russia is now experiencing a real boom. We have repeatedly rejoiced at the opening of new production facilities in this industry. As for the total production volumes, over the past year they have grown almost one and a half times (link): At the end of 2023, the volume of the contract manufacturing of electronics in Russia grew by 42% to 35 billion rubles. This was reported by Vedomosti based on a study by the Association of Russian Developers and Manufacturers of Electronics (ARPE). It showed that the average utilization rate of enterprises reached 79%. Growth continues now: in the first quarter of 2024, market size increased by 44% compared to the same period last year, and investment in production increased by 160% during the same time. Electronics contract manufacturing includes assembly, printed circuit board assembly and fabrication, component installation, casting and molding, and other operations. The largest market participants in Russia are GS Group, ATB Electronics, NPP Gamma and other companies. The basis of contract manufacturing is the installation of components on printed circuit boards, ARPE explained, but more than half of the cost comes from related services: circuit design, design, testing, packaging and other services. This is not the first time that Russia has seen active growth in contract manufacturing of electronics: in 2019, this market grew by more than a quarter, to 20 billion rubles. Then these indicators were achieved through large import substitution projects. Today, the entire Russian electronics market (not just consumer electronics) is estimated at 6.1 trillion rubles. – 65% of them are imported products, and 35% remain domestic. Russian contract manufacturing of electronics is growing due to the abandonment of production in Europe and Asia: even without taking into account logistics, Asian products are sometimes more expensive than Russian ones, noted a representative of the domestic company M-plata. At GS Group, the utilization of contract capacity, depending on the number of orders, today ranges from 80% to 100%. It is expected that in 2024 the growth of the computer equipment market in Russia will be 30%, telecommunications – 50%, and components – no more than 30%. By 2030, the Russian microelectronics market, under an optimistic scenario, could grow fourfold to 1.1 trillion rubles, according to analysts from the auditing company Kept, of which 578 billion rubles. (55%) will be provided by Russian manufacturers. 2. Another high-precision industry is rapidly developing in Russia - the production of bearings (link): ...Currently, the share of imports [подшипников] exceeds 70%. The problem will become most acute in 2022. Due to the shortage of components, some enterprises, including manufacturers of locomotives and carriages, have actually stopped their work; Difficulties arose with the repair of existing equipment. The lack of complete localization led to the shutdown of a number of factories, which caused a shortage in the domestic market. As a result, some measures were taken to correct the situation (some problems were resolved fairly quickly), but “transportation dependence” remains one of the main problems for the domestic industry. Another important step in this direction will be the creation of an industrial cluster for the production of bearings in the Rostov region, which was announced in April 2024. This cluster will include both local enterprises and companies from the Tver region and the Moscow region. The region's Minister of Industry and Energy, Andrei Savelyev, noted that the launch of production in the new territory will begin this year. Currently, technical documentation is being developed. The official emphasized that the creation of an interregional technology park will help gradually eliminate dependence on imports. It will produce roller and needle bearings for automobiles, as well as ball bearings for aircraft and electronics. It was also announced that by the summer of this year the task of completely localizing the production of cassette bearings for railway cars will be completed. All key components of this product have been successfully replaced. For example, Tek-Com Group launched video production. The company also localizes bearings for locomotives and other rolling stock, including high-speed electric trains. Based on the results of 2023, “Automotive Bearing Plant No. 1”. Plant No. 1, located in the Dubna special economic zone, produced the first set of parts - 1 thousand pieces. Starting from 2025, the company plans to produce up to 380 thousand products annually. 3. From the comments (link) I take a characteristic remark: I am a Siberian private electrician. The home/cottage/office renovation market has always been and remains an indicator of people’s well-being. After the launch of SVO, there was a fear that the market for our services would shrink. Sanctions, coercion, all that... The chief engineer of a local brewery wanted to invite me to install equipment in the new workshop. But with the beginning of the Northern Military District, the expansion of production was suspended, because The bourgeoisie “opened the tap” to high-quality European technological equipment. The same thing happened in the private sphere at first. Well-known brands began to leave, and buyers lay low in anticipation. But it didn't last long. The Europeans were replaced by very good Chinese, and the domestic manufacturer became more active. Clients are no longer afraid to invest money. The market for our services... began to grow steadily. Our city is also becoming more beautiful before our eyes, and the last two years are no exception. And here I am in new territories, which until 2022 were under the control of our opponents. Heaven and earth, comrades, heaven and earth! Plus, I have something to compare with - I myself lived in these territories for many years until I left in 2014. And I remember HOW it was here THEN, and how sad it all looks now. But Russia is gradually beginning to invest in these territories. And in the example of a small industrial town in which I lived until 2014 and in which I am now, this is very clearly visible. Oleg Makarenkohttps://dzen.ru Source link Source link