Author: Steven Sahiounie

French dairy producer Danone may rebrand some of its popular products as it seeks to maintain its share in the Russian market, Telegram channel Mash reported on Tuesday. According to the report, the food giant is considering renaming Activia yogurt to ‘Take it easy’, and Actimel milk drink to ‘Delicious. Healthy. It’s a deal’. The company has confirmed plans to abandon names such as Activia, Alpro, Actimel, and Danone, and is “considering ways to make brands more relevant to the local market.” The rebranding is set to take place in the coming months, according to the media outlet. “Danone may not object to the…

Hungary has agreed on additional gas supply with Gazprom in case of an emergency, the Foreign Ministry has said Hungary has reached an agreement with Russian energy company Gazprom on possible gas supplies in excess of what is provided for in long-term contracts, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said during a visit to Moscow on Tuesday. The announcement followed talks with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak and the CEO of Russian nuclear energy major Rosatom, Aleksey Likhachev. “We managed to agree with Gazprom the possibility of buying supply volumes in excess of the amount indicated in the long-term contracts, if…

Despite the change, the exit of Western firms could still harm the country’s economy in the long run, the body has warned The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its growth forecast for the Russian economy in 2023 in its World Economic Outlook report released on Tuesday. Russia’s GDP is expected to grow 0.7% this year, an upwards revision from the 0.3% increase that the IMF predicted in its January report. According to IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Russia was “able to maintain quite a bit of momentum in the economy by taking, for instance, very strong fiscal measures.”  Despite the upward revision…

Russia has made its first fuel deliveries to Iran by rail as the two sanctioned countries rapidly expand energy and trade ties amid Western restrictions, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing three industry sources and export data. Last autumn, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak announced that Moscow and Tehran had clinched a massive energy deal worth $40 billion and agreed to swap supplies of oil and natural gas. Since then, the two countries have been working out the routes and technical arrangements for the deal. The actual supplies started this year when Russia exported about 30,000 tons of gasoline and…

Several EU countries are planning to cut their reliance on Russian uranium by turning to Kazakhstan for supplies, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing the CEO of state-owned Kazakh mining company Kazatomprom. According to Yerzhan Mukanov, the uranium miner has received requests from several nuclear power plants in Eastern Europe for supply contracts from 2025. The plants in question ordinarily buy their uranium from Russia. “We are preparing our reserves for production, so we will be able to respond to market requests,” Mukanov said, adding that his company plans to maintain its uranium output this year at about 22,000 tons. Kazakhstan…

Ethereum’s Ether (ETH) token continued its losing streak versus Bitcoin (BTC) for the fifth day in a row as BTC’s price jumped above $30,000 for the first time since June 2022. ETH/BTC bullish reversal fails midway On April 11, the ETH/BTC pair dropped nearly 1.6% to 0.0634 BTC to retest multi-month lows. ETH/BTC level is down 6.75% from its local peak of 0.0679 BTC set six days ago. It is also just 2% above the pair’s local low of 0.0622 BTC from March 20, showing that Ether’s bullish reversal attempt versus Bitcoin is near failure. Interestingly, institutional interest also appears…

Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing unit of Chinese tech giant Alibaba, announced Tuesday it will be rolling out its own ChatGPT-style product Tongyi Qianwen. Tongyi Qianwen, which possess Chinese and English language capabilities, will initially be deployed on DingTalk, Alibaba’s workplace communication software, and Tmall Genie, a provider of smart home appliances, the company said in a release. Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba gained traded more than 3% higher after the announcement but has since pared some gains. Shares of Baidu in Hong Kong were down 6%. At the 2023 Alibaba Cloud Summit, the company said it will be rolling out the artificial intelligence-powered…

It’s been one month since Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, triggering alarms throughout the halls of global finance. The initial panic has settled into a more tolerable state of tension. We can all take a deep breath, knowing our money is safe and that banks have the tools they need, courtesy of the federal government, to weather the storm. “We’re going from flashing red lights to flashing yellow lights,” Wells Fargo’s senior bank analyst Mike Mayo told me recently. “I think it’s time for hyper awareness and vigilance to anything else” that might further undermine confidence. Regulators and investors are certainly on…

Markets were mostly unchanged Monday, though bitcoin breached $30,000. Investors are waiting for bank earnings and price reports. What you need to know today The bottom line Markets in the U.S. reopened Monday but seemed to retain a post-holiday sluggishness as investors digested multiple signs of a slowing — but still strong — economy. First, even though consumers felt credit was harder to come by in March, the banking turmoil is subsiding. Charles Schwab said average daily outflows were down from February, and the bank had added $53 billion of core net new client assets in March. That trend is…

Credit Suisse and UBS must freeze any job cuts planned as part of their emergency merger, the Swiss Bank Employees’ Association (SBPV) said on Monday, in an open letter to the country’s parliament. SBPV managing director Natalia Ferrara has written to lawmakers to demand they consider staff affected by the collapse of Credit Suisse and halt any job losses until the end of 2023. “We … call on you to support our demand for a freeze on layoffs by the end of 2023 in parliament,” Ferrara wrote in the letter published by newspaper Blick on Monday. “Politicians must not shirk responsibility,” she added.…