Reuters is reporting that Russia and Poland have agreed a new gas supply deal conforming to EU rules.
The deal should ease worries that Europe, which takes gas through the Polish pipeline, will face shortages during the coming winter.
Russia and Poland agreed on to increase gas delivery to Poland and its transit to Germany through the Yamal pipeline last year but was not signed due to worries that it was incompatible with European Union laws.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will meet his Chinese counterpart Liang Guanglie next week on the sidelines of an ASEAN conference in Hanoi as the United States and China move to end an eight-month freeze on military exchanges.
Gates is reportedly planning to travel to China early next year.
“I think we are efforting to put together a meeting of that sort when Secretary Gates and his Chinese counterpart are attending the ASEAN-plus ministerial in Hanoi early next week,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters.
Although both are posed to outperform most developed markets, at least one senior wealth management executive believes that Chinese stocks should be the preferred choice over Indian stocks based on the former’s presently low valuation.
“Emerging markets China and India are quoting in the range of 12-13 and 17-18 price to earnings, with India clearly outperforming the rest of the world,” Stephen Corry, director and chief investment officer of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management’s Asia-Pacific region, told Reuters in an interview. “We expect China to outperform India in the second half of 2010.”
North Korea’s iconic leader Kim Jong-il hailed his country’s “shining victory” and sang patriotic songs while attending a concert on Wednesday, according to official media outlets.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il attended a concert yesterday celebrating the 57th anniversary of the Korean War as the two main adversaries from that conflict conducted war drills off his country’s eastern coast.
The Ukrainian government has decided to liquidate its unprofitable coal mines, closing down 107 of them in 2010.
“The government funds which was use to spent on unprofitable mining enterprises support will be going to modernization of those mines, which can be successfully privatized in the near future,” a government official explained.
The Ukrainian parliament is moving to ratify the pro-EU natural gas market liberalization law in all three required readings.
According to the law, state-run NJSC Naftogaz in order to give an equal access to gas pipelines for each market participant, will be divided to three different enterprises by type of activity: marketing, extracting and transportation.
Chinese companies are taking the lead as China has become the biggest initial public offering market in the world in terms of amount of funds raised and the number of deals made, based on a report by accounting firm Ernst & Young.
Hong Kong is the natural choice for most mainland companies opting for a stock listing while small and high-growth information technology companies tend to opt for a listing in the United States. “China will maintain its lead in the IPO market as more mainland companies tap overseas capital pools even as they expand their business locally,” said Terence Ho, strategic growth markets and China IPO leader at Ernst & Young.
The Ukrainian market for mortgage loans has been continuing to decline from the beginning of 2010. Since then national banks portfolios have reduced by 3.5 percent to 3.6 billions grivnas. In the first quote of this year, credits volume, guaranteed by real estates reduced to 3.64 billion grivnas, the national Ukrainian Mortgage Association (UMA) reported yesterday. Throughout last year credit volume reduced by 3.8 percent.
“During the pre-crisis years real estate markets were overheated due to very trite reason like greediness”, UMA chairman of board Igor Yushko said to Kommersant-Ukraine daily.
Azerbaijan-Central Asia Financial Markets Infrastructure Advisory Services Project (ACAFI) official Teymur Geybatov announced that Azerbaijan’s Central Bank has accepted the ACAFI’s business-plan to open the country’s first credit bureau, calling it “the cornerstones of a sound financial system.”
“According to our business plan, capital accumulation should be completed within 9 months” – said Geybatov, who added that US$1 million is needed to provide the bureau with the required software.
According to Tajik Ministry of Finance over US$186 million was transferred to the accounts of the Rogun hydroelectric power plant project through the sale of stocks and shares certificates of OJSC Rogun as well as financial donations, fergana.ru reports.
The shares of construction company with total value of US$1.37 billion were issued on January 6, 2010. US$3.2 billion is required for the project achievement.
Construction on the Rogun Dam began back in 1976, and continued in starts and stops for the past 30 years. In 2004, the Tajik government formed a partnership with Russia’s Rusal to complete the project. Despite Rusal’s US$2 billion commitment to the project, Tajikistan authorities had canceled their contract in 2007.