Trading of shares in Russia's state-owned oil firm Rosneft may start on July 14, Russian business daily Vedomosti reported yesterday, citing an investment banker close to the company's forthcoming IPO. The road show for the IPO will begin on June 26, said the investment banker. Rosneft is expected to offer shares worth $8 billion, of which $3 billion worth of shares will be placed on Russian exchanges, while the rest of the shares will be placed on the London Stock Exchange. The $8 billion offer translates into a 15 to 16% stake, based on Rosneft's estimated value of about $50 billion, said Dan Rapoport, managing director of Russian commercial bank Center-Invest.
Venezuela and Mexico could operate the oil fields seized from U.S. oil firm Occidental (Oxy), whose contract was cancelled on May 15, 2006 by the Ecuadorian Government. Ecuador could create a strategic alliance with a state-owned company, Ecuador's Energy Minister Ivan Rodriguez said. It might also sign a direct contract with a foreign state-owned company. The candidates for an alliance include Venezuela's PDVSA, Chile's ENAP, Mexico's Pemex, Colombia's Ecopetrol and Brazil's Petrobras. Oxy produced 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day, out of Ecuador's total output of 532,000 barrels per day.
Thanks to economic growth of 4.3% in 2005, Croatia’s GDP per capita hit €7,000, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said on Wednesday. Croatia is ahead of some countries that entered the European Union two years ago and certainly ahead of those to enter in 2007, he added. “Good economic trends, evident in last year's growth, have continued this year and we can expect further GDP growth”, Sanader said.
The Indian government expects to see foreign direct investment inflows to reach $10 billion during the current fiscal year, April 2006 to March 2007. Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said that FDI inflows during 2005/2006 had increased 50% year-on-year to $8.3 billion.
South Korea’s Ministry of Finance and Economy Director General for Tax and Customs, Kim Yong-min, said that property prices appear to have stabilised and would start declining. The S Korean government has consistently tried to contain South Korea's increasing property prices. The government increased taxes on capital gains on property and also introduced measures to reduce bank lending to the property sector. Yong-min said that he expects, property prices to decline by as much as 20%-30%.