Russian Economy Improvement Not to Seriously Impact EU Investment – BP

Recent improvements in the performance of Russia’s economy will not have a substantial impact on attracting trade investments between the European Union and Russia, BP Vice President for Russia Peter Charow told Sputnik Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On October 21, Fitch Ratings revised the outlook for nine Russian local and regional governments (LRGs), including Moscow and Saint Petersburg, to stable from negative amid the upgrade of the country’s sovereign rating.

"I’m very happy to see Russia’s economic performance improving but I’m not sure that this will have a substantial material impact on the trade investment between the European Union and Russia. Much of it is driven by oil prices, sanctions regime, trade restrictions, so the two are not necessarily related," Charow said on the sidelines of a Russia TALK Investment Forum in Moscow asked if Russia's improving economy would attract more businesses to the country.

He added that UK companies, namely BP, were continuing to look for opportunities to invest in Russia, but it would be difficult to maintain trade levels of past years due to the current political and economic situation.

On October 14, Fitch also revised the outlook for Russia’s long-term financial risk rating from negative to stable, explaining that the country’s economy has adjusted to lower oil prices and domestic confidence has started to return.

EU companies are the most important investors into Russia, representing 48 percent of the total foreign trade in 2015, while about 74 present of foreign direct investments to Russia come from the EU member states, the chairman of the Association of European Businesses (AEB) said Tuesday.