The Kremlin has shifted emphasis away from encouraging growth, which is now strong, to tackling pressing social problems like pension reform. Ben Aris finds out that, although a good plan has got off to a bad start, there is hope for the future.Marina is standing outside the Valentino shop in tears. She received her monthly Rbs400 pension ($15) yesterday but lost her avoska, the occasional shopping bag that all Russians used to carry, along with her purse.
Having ignored his banking interests in favour of oil and metals, one of Russia’s oligarchs has now discovered the cash cow that is retail banking. Ben Aris writes. Vladimir Potanin ignored his bank until a few months ago. One of Russia’s classic seven oligarchs that came to the fore in the 1990s and the owner of Interros industrial group, he was concentrating ondeveloping his core metallurgical companies such as Norilsk Nickel.
Funds are rushing to get a slice of Russia’s property pie before the limited supply of top quality buildings dries up. Ben Aris reports. The leading Russian Trading System index sailed through its all time high of 571 on October 9 to 637.77. With Russia’s blue chips already trading at fair value, investors are looking for news ways to get some exposure to Russia’s ballistic growth. They are turning to real estate’s high returns and low risk and last month saw the first ever institutional investment into real estate by a dedicated real estatefund.