Today in Russian Business – April 17, 2009

Cyprus, one of Russia’s biggest trading partners, will be removed from the Russian tax ‘blacklist‘, eliminating double taxation on assets.  For the second week running Russia’s international reserves have fallen by $1.1 billion over the week.  Rusal claims it remains ‘profitable‘ despite falling metal prices.  The company will reduce output at its current plants to facilitate the construction of two Siberian smelters.  Alfa Bank says the ‘most conservative scenario is a zero net profit for this year‘, expecting bad loans to consume all of its gains.  Rusnano and the State Statistics Service are planning to create a system to track all developments in Russian nanotechnology, with the aim of winning 3% of the global market by 2015.  Ursa Bank is to buy back as much as $132 million worth of euro bonds.  Alexander Lebedev’s Blue Wings airline will file for bankruptcy and ‘will try to make a point that it is the German government’s fault‘, Bloomberg reports.  Russian government bonds will rise as a stable ruble and the central bank’s attempts to lower borrowing costs mean the country’s ‘risk profile‘, is improved.