It is difficult to provide an assessment of the changes taking place in emerging economies. Their share in the global economy has increased and their markets have become more heterogeneous, but many structural reforms have not been completed.
The 2019 Economic Freedom Report by The Heritage Foundation shows that the world seems to be at a crossroads — it may continue on the path of economic freedom or it may return to hindered growth and development.
Russia has organized the most expensive World Cup in history. However, the execution of this investment fell on a period of rapid deterioration in Russia's economic and geopolitical position.
Russian Prosecutor General, Yuri Chaika, said that the Russian government lost USD692m as a result of corruption in 2018. According to Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2018, the average bribe was worth RUB451,000 (USD6,485).
On November 19th, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan marked the completion of the offshore phase of a gas pipeline linking the two nations from underneath the Black Sea.
Although Sberbank denied information that it plans to acquire a controlling stake in Yandex, Russian tech giant lost more than 20 per cent of capitalization on this news.
The Hungarian government wants to diversify the sources of natural gas imports, with Polish and Croatia terminals supplying the US and Qatari LNG. But its main focus remains Russian gas, as the Turskstream pipeline makes clear.
By the year 2025, up to 80 per cent of Russia’s population will have access to the internet via the 5th generation wireless network (5G), according to a recent Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA) report.
This year Latvian tax authorities are investigating 131 money laundering cases. Recently, the European Central Bank has decided to increase its supervision of European banks at high risk of money laundering, including Latvian banks.
The Belarusian budget may lose 20 per cent of its annual revenues as a result of the increases of the price of Russian oil. The Russian-Belarusian economic relations are unique in history, but may not last forever.