“Chaebolization” of the Russian economy, exclusion from Fix Price, reshuffle in the World Bank and Russia: the main thing for business July 20

In the world

• Sri Lanka will introduce visas for “digital nomads” and recognise Russian driving licences. The country also intends to supply the Russian Federation with specialists in textile and food production.

• European airline Wizz Air will pay passengers for a global IT outage. Refunds will be available in the form of 120% WIZZ vouchers.

• The price of Brent oil on ICE fell below $83 per barrel for the first time since June 17.
• Annual inflation in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) amounted to 8.1% (EEC data). In June – 0.6%.

In Russia

• Companies will pay higher duties on “hostile sweets” – 35%. Mishustin signed a decree on caramel, toffee, fruit paste, etc.

• Sobyanin: “Smart” cameras have helped reduce the number of accidents on the Moscow Ring Road. In three years, 1,500 video analysis systems in data centres reduced the number of incidents by 20%.

• The most popular tablet brands on the market in Russia have been named. The country has seen a sharp rise in sales of such devices. The top five included devices from Huawei, Honor, Samsung, Apple, as well as Xiaomi and Redmi.

• UnionPay cards issued by Rosselkhozbank (RSHB) are still valid abroad on July 20. Previously, the bank advised customers to withdraw cash before July 19, warning that after that date the operation would be impossible.

• Experts have reported the “chaebolization” of the Russian economy. The term comes from the Korean “chaebol,” a form of diversified business and industrial conglomerates in South Korea, such as Samsung, LG, Lotte and Hyundai.

In business

• One of the participants in the beating of the director of the World Class chain of gyms has been arrested. A criminal case has been initiated under the article “Hooliganism”.
• FAS protected the AX trademark. The agency acknowledged that the packaging was copied by the manufacturer of men’s deodorants and shower gels “EXXE”.

• Fix Price will remove receipts from the London Stock Exchange. The company decided that this was no longer its priority. RDA will continue to be listed on the Astana International Stock Exchange. The retailer’s receipts are also available on the Moscow Stock Exchange.

• Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh spoke about the complete lack of ties with Russia. He said this in an interview with the German publication Spiegel; he claims that the Nebius group does not send a single byte of data to Moscow.

• T-Bank (formerly Tinkoff) has opened access to its large language model T-lite. It is designed to create AI solutions for a wide range of business problems. It is reported that T-lite demonstrates the best results in solving business problems in Russian among open models with a size of 7-8 billion parameters.

• Wildberries founder Tatyana Bakalchuk announced several appointments in the new merged company. She told us who will lead the legal department and the media department.

• Anastasia Tatulova, founder of the Anderson coffee chain, previously acquired by Vkusville, has closed her individual business project in Russia. Previously, the Ministry of Justice recognised the entrepreneur as a foreign agent.

• In Alice, the ability to eavesdrop is blocked “at the iron level,” said Dmitry Masyuk, head of Yandex’s search and advertising technology business group.