Amendments to the laws, liquidation of the development fund of single industry cities, Timati on Starbucks: the main thing for business July 31

In Russia

• State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin recalled that several new laws will come into force tomorrow: on increasing pensions, new rules for advertising baby food, access to tax information. For example, it will be easier for the self-employed to register for tax purposes: an online application can be submitted to the Federal Tax Service through the State Services. And the Federal Tax Service, with the permission of the taxpayer, will now be able to transfer data about him to third parties (and this will not be a disclosure of tax secrets)
• The Monotowns Development Fund submitted all the documents for subsequent liquidation (presumably in September) in court. All background tasks will now be performed by another framework. Judging by the fact that the team has completely moved to VEB. RF (which originally included the organization), it is this state corporation that will continue to deal with single-industry cities.
• In the first half of 2022, the expenses of Russians for children’s online education fell by 21%, and on the purchase of toys increased by 13%, on various gadgets and accessories for them – by 38 .5%, in clothing items, by more than 50%, for stationery – by 16% (RIA Novosti with reference to a study by the Russian Standard Bank).

• The Government of the Russian Federation has extended the tariff quota for the export of ferrous scrap and waste outside the EAEU until the end of the year (1,350,000 tons with a duty of 5%, but not less than 100 EUR per ton within the quota and not less than €290 per tonne if exceeded).

In the world

• The Institute of International Finance announced a record investment outflow from developing countries: In five months, investors withdrew more than $38 billion from these markets. This is the highest since 2005.

• Saudi Arabia’s economy in the second quarter of 2022 jumped 11.8%, the maximum of the decade, and experts unambiguously name the situation around Russian oil in the context of the Ukrainian conflict as the engine of growth.

• From August 1, the agreement between Russia and Latvia on the facilitation of mutual travel between residents of border areas (tv.net) will be suspended. The Latvian Foreign Ministry also urged to stop issuing visas to Russians in the EU.

• The UN believes WikiLeaks creator Julian Assange was the victim of “intelligence collusion” and was prosecuted for exposing war crimes and corruption.

• Again, it was not possible to create a global standard for ESG investing in Europe: the project was postponed indefinitely due to the unwillingness of the European Commission to allocate funds for the development of the social taxonomy (section S in the ESG strategy). In the context of the Ukrainian conflict, political and social divisions have become too obvious, making it difficult to attract state investment in this area (Bloomberg).

in corporations

• US microchip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) overtook Intel in market capitalization ($153 billion vs. $148 billion). As CNBC discovered, after analyzing trading data on July 29, AMD shares were up 5% while Intel shares fell nearly 9% against the backdrop of the company’s first quarterly loss report in decades.

• Business Insider found that more than 1,100 companies, including Intel, SpaceX, Dell, Philip Morris and others, have acquired a license to use the FindFace face and silhouette recognition system from Russian developers NTechLab. At the same time, Intel and Nokia do not use FindFace, despite a license: among more than 1000 owners of access to NTechLab software there are about three hundred active customers.
• And Timati said in his personal blog that “now officially” all assets of the Starbucks network in Russia have passed to him and restaurateur Anton Pinsky. “Monstrous rebrandings are not expected”, the best designers in the country will have the opportunity to go down in history with the new logo of the establishments, and future visitors will have the opportunity to express their wishes for the future menu.