Editorial

Dear readers!

We are happy to present you the first issue of journal “Global markets and financial engineering”.

It brings together five articles written by authors from Russia and Kazakhstan. Our journal is dedicated to the issues of macroeconomics, financial markets and the mathematical methods used in these fields. In the next issues, we will present research works within the scope of these disciplines, each conducted by the researchers from the best domestic and foreign universities.

The article by K.N. Korishchenko is dedicated to the problems, which have become even more relevant in the recent years - accelerated ruble devaluation, Russia’s economic slowdown in the worsening conditions of foreign markets. The author has made the following main conclusion: the impact of capital flows has been the key factor in changing of the balance of payments, and the stability of policy of the floating ruble exchange-value becomes more and more doubtful.

Ratings and the development of rating business in Russia are the main topics of A.M. Karminsky’s article. Today the need to develop this sector in Russia, comparability of Russian and international rankings are in the first line of agenda, especially in the run-up to the enactment of the relevant law. Without a doubt, the direction in which this process will develop is decisive for the Russian financial market.

Over the recent years, the privatization in Russia has undergone many sharp turns, and the issues of transfer of major companies from the state into private hands have become even more relevant, both in terms of pumping up the budget and in terms of improving the efficiency of the Russian economy as a whole. D.A. Vaganov’s article is devoted to the key issue of preparation of large Russian companies for sale - elaboration of a development strategy. This study touches upon such issues as:

- What is a major Russian state company - business or the solution of the state tasks?

- Is it possible to combine market and infrastructure goals?

A new trend in evaluating the economic activity of the regions has been rapidly developing recently - investment attractiveness rankings. The already known internal (ASI rating) and international (DoingBusiness rating) evaluations continue to develop. However, the questions of comparability, methodological approaches, reliability and verifiability of such ratings remain open A.M. Pakhalov’s article explores these issues and formulates the basic methodological approach to creation of ranking methodologies aimed at evaluating the investment attractiveness.

The final article of the issue prepared by R.G. Imambayeva is devoted to the problems of the banking system of Kazakhstan - development of new, post-crisis approaches to work with customers in terms of global competition. The presence of bank capital from the West, East, Russia on the market in Kazakhstan demands sharp spurt in the development of all aspects of customer service from the Kazakh banks - development of technologies and products, clustering customer base with various methods of service, transfer of the best global practices.

I hope that the studies presented will be helpful both in practical work and as materials for further research.

Your questions, comments, suggestions will receive the attention they deserve - contact us, criticize, we are open for dialogue.

Wishing you great scientific achievements,

Editor-in-Chief of “Global Markets and Financial Engineering”

Konstantin Korishchenko