Moscow took the 84th place in the annual ranking of global financial centres according to the London consulting firm Z/Yen Group’s Long Finance program). She was down 17 positions and is now in the bottom of the list, ahead of only St. Petersburg, Bahamas and Athens.
In 2013 the Russian government approved a “road map” to transform Moscow into an international financial centre, one of the targets was the improvement of positions in various international indices, including the ranking of the Z/Yen Group and Long Finance. The “road map” established the benchmark hit Moscow in the top 25 financial centres by 2015 and in the top 15 by 2018.
In the updated ranking of the total score of Moscow, calculated by the outer opening (for example, the index of competitiveness of the telecommunications infrastructure according to the UN, the ranking of ease of doing business world Bank or the corruption perception index of Transparency International), and according to their online survey Long Finance, fell 43 points, and this is the worst rate among all financial centres. Sharply handed over positions in Mumbai (minus 42 points), Dalian (-39), tel Aviv and Helsinki (minus 33), Manila (-29), Mexico (-26).
Among financial centers in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Moscow is now giving way to Alma-ATA, Tallinn and Riga, which last year were below the Russian capital. “Warsaw, Tallinn and Riga became the leaders in the region. Istanbul, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Athens continue to lag,” reads the report from Z/Yen, which also notes that “Turkey and Russia are both involved in armed conflict” (referring to Syria).
The top five ranking has not changed is London, remaining in first place despite Brexit, new York, Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo. But this year’s ranking was calculated on the basis of data collected until the end of June, so Brexit did not have time to affect the position of London. The following ranking can be reflected “significant changes” related to Brexit, warn the authors of the report.
