Commentary
Aleksander Martynyuk Department for Strategic Studies in Energy
Strategic oil reserve being sold by Trump will not undermine the market
Selling-off half the U.S. strategic oil reserve is unlikely to significantly affect the world market. A short-term decrease in the price of this energy source can occur only if sales are uneven. This opinion was expressed by an expert of the Analytical Center Alexander Martynyuk in his interview to REGNUM News Agency, while he was commenting on the decision of President Donald Trump to sell off almost 350 million barrels of the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Elena Razumova Department for Expert Analytics
Sugar production is the most profitable sector in agriculture
Deputy Head of the Department for Expert Analytics of the Analytical Center Elena Razumova told CityMagazine about the realities and development prospects of import substitution in the Russian agricultural sector.
Daniil Nametkin Department for Expert Analytics
Any negative factor may weaken the ruble
Foreign speculators that have been propping up the value of the ruble since last summer may get out of the game as soon as the second half of this year, Analytical Center experts are warning. They are talking about speculative carry-trades, in which money is borrowed in foreign markets at a low interest rate and then invested in ruble financial instruments that offer high fixed rates.
Dmitry Chernenko Department for State-Run Programs and Budgeting
Additional indexation of the rates may get in the way of growth in domestic container shipments
According to Russian Railways, the past 5 years have seen the amount of cargo shipped by rail in containers in Russia go up by 28 %. "The Russian container shipping market demonstrated record growth in 2016. A total of 3.26 million containers were shipped, which was 10 % more than the year before. There was also a significant increase in the amount of containers shipped by rail: 13 % on the 2015 level; however, the speed of the traditional container trains and those whose speed was increased in the same period remained largely at the same level," Analytical Center expert Dmitry Chernenok commented on the situation for the Russian Railways Partner magazine.
Evgeny Gasho Department for Expert Analytics
Heat loss costs are only partially included in the rate
Losses in heat networks and the systemic underfunding of the sector — the expert of the Analytical Center Evgeny Gasho spoke about the challenges the energy sector faces and whether it is possible to solve them during the summer preventive cutoffs in his interview to RIA Novosti.
Leonid Grigoryev Chief Adviser to Head of the Analytical Center
There is a very high level of social inequality in the Russian market
The make-up of consumer spending on services changes significantly depending on a person's income; that's the conclusion drawn by Analytical Center experts. "At the same time, the share of paid services in total consumer spending in Russia is less than in the developed nations and in a number of emerging economies," Leonid Grigoriev, an adviser to the Head of the Analytical Center, told an Nezavisimaya Gazeta correspondent.
Tatiana Radchenko Deputy Head
For three years in a row we have been seeing declining estimates of the level of competition
"For three years in a row we have been seeing declining estimates of the level of competition, first of all, among small businesses operating in the local markets: the share of respondents saying there is a high or a very high level of competition keeps going down (from 53 % in 2015 to 48 % in 2017), as does the share of those that say the number of their competitors has increased (49 % in 2017 vs 58 % in 2015)," Tatiana Radchenko, Deputy Head of the Analytical Center, said in an interview to a Kommersant correspondent.
Dmitry Khomchenko Department for Sectors of Economy
Reducing the frequency of audits to become an incentive to improve performance
“Any audit or inspection means a lot of stress for managers of any legal entity. And when audits are reduced to a minimum, this works as an effective incentive to improve the performance and, at the very least, results in the demands of people who benefit from the services provided by facility management companies being satisfied”, said expert with the Analytical Centre Dmitry Khomchenko in his interview to TASS.
Svyatoslav Pikh Department for Fuel and Energy Sector
Shale Revolution outside the US: Reality or Myth?
It is not just professionals that know about the shale revolution: anyone who's even remotely involved with mineral resources will have at least heard of it, and even people that have nothing to do with oil and natural gas production are often aware of it. The Analytical Center expert Svyatoslav Pikh has published an article in the Fuel and Energy Sector of Russia Magazine, in which he analyzes the shale revolution phenomenon in the US, which brought about major changes in the global economy and in the global energy sector.
Alexander Golyashev Department for Research Studies