Kremlin’s heavy hand triggers foreign exodus
Posted on 31 July 2008 by Jack
Foreign investors have become extremely wary of the Russian stock market after the Kremlin moved yet again to tighten its noose around the country’s energy and mining sector, launching anti-trust probes against London-listed Evraz Holding and Raspadsky Coal.
The move follows last week’s assault on steel and coal giant Mechel for alleged overpricing of raw materials and using off-shore trading to cut its tax bill.
Moscow’s RTS stock market index has fallen by 25pc since May on fears that premier Vladimir Putin is once again using probes or other heavy-handed methods to reorder the strategic landscape.
The bare-knuckle fight for control over BP’s Russian TNK-BP has deeply shocked investors in the City and New York. The joint venture had been launched in 2003 with the personal blessing of Mr Putin, making it quite different from the foreign resource grab during the Yeltsin era that so enrages Russian nationalists.
Popularity: 16% [?]
July 31st, 2008 at 4:07 pm
The ’shades’ of Stalin and Lenin are omniprescent in the sad land of terror, mass murder, and regulated human behavior. The Soviet Union terrorized, tortured and killed any person who tried to help the PEOPLE who live in Russia - any intellectuals were routinely shot or imprisoned if they showed individual expertize on anything. Writers either spewed the Bolshevik rhetoric or found themselves dead or in a gulag.
As in our own country, it is almost impossible to remove the life sucking bureaucrats from their old ‘entitled’ positions. Because the Soviet Union rewrote history and regulated education to fit their own agendas, Russia’s ‘dumbed down’ people have no templates to follow. Putin is ex KGB - his character was forged in the cellars of Lubianka Prison.
Putin makes my skin crawl.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I was astounded years ago when I saw the rush to do business in Russia. These “business” people, it’s hard to believe they can be so stupid and blind. Or is it just greed? I figure if a person sticks their finger in a fire, they deserve to get burnt.
These guys are smarter than either Stalin or Lenin.