Eurasian Integration Yearbook 2012

The Economics of the Post-Sovietand Eurasian Integrationof overseas expansion of the relevant banking groups. In the case of transportcompanies, as a rule, it is very difficult to obtain FDI statistics even on longtermassets, nevertheless the nature of the investors’ fleet of aircraft, rail cars orvessels is well known and its value can easily be estimated. Comparison with thepublished costs of similar projects may also be utilised in estimating investmentin construction, provided that the projects in question are fairly standard.The information search algorithm also has some distinctive features. To buildan initial database, it was necessary to decide upon a list of target companiesto be included in the MMI CIS exercise on a regular basis in order to detectnew investment in the overseas expansion of relevant TNCs (be it additionalFDI in existing assets or geographic expansion). In addition, we had to identifythe most valuable sources of information, mainly on the internet, for identifyingnew acquisitions and greenfield projects.On the whole, the MMI CIS algorithm can be divided into the following sixsteps:• examining the websites of leading Russian companies, firstly those on theExpert-400 list (Expert, 2011), and the most prominent companies andbusiness groups in other CIS countries;• monitoring news of FDI issued by companies from CIS countries andGeorgia;• examining business and scientific publications (with varying levels ofcoverage, from Belarusian projects in Smolensk Oblast to corporateintegration in the context of the CIS as a whole);• verifying all collected data on FDI using the companies’ financial statements,reports and press releases;• if no such data are available, calculating the above indirect indicators and/or checking them against other data (particularly Rosstat data on directinvestments from CIS countries in Russia’s regions and industries); and• commissioning an independent expert to verify the data obtained.One of the key decisions for monitoring was where to set the minimum sizeof project investment for inclusion in the database. Clearly, information onsmaller investment projects often escapes the attention of the mass media.The relevant investing companies are themselves less likely to publicisetheir activities (due to their small size, among other things), and in the caseof large TNCs such projects seem negligible in the context of their larger FDItransactions. Therefore, many foreign statistical agencies introduce minimumreporting thresholds for direct investors which, however, vary greatly betweencountries. For example, in the mid-2000s this threshold ranged across the EUfrom $3,000 in Estonia and $12,000 in Denmark to $10 million in Finland and136 EDB Eurasian Integration Yearbook 2012