Trond Westlie, Chief Financial Officer of VEON, commented: “The repatriation of cash from Uzbekistan for the first time is an important milestone for VEON, further enhancing the cash upstreaming capability of the Group and allowing Unitel to honor its global payment obligations necessary for ongoing operations. Our Uzbekistan operation has reported encouraging results in local currency this year and we remain committed to the business and further investments in the country.”

The currency conversion to US$200 million resulted in a foreign currency exchange loss of approximately US$49 million, which will be recorded as a finance cost in the 2017 Income Statement of the company.