KYIV. July 26 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Official Journal of the European Union has published a communiqué on the entry into force of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine starting from September 1, 2017.
“The Association Agreement between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community and their Member States, of the one part, and Ukraine, of the other part, signed in Brussels on 21 March 2014 and 27 June 2014 (1), enters into force on 1 September 2017, in accordance with Article 486(2) of the Agreement, as the last instrument of ratification or approval was deposited on 11 July 2017,” reads a statement posted on the official website for the EU legislation.
As reported, on July 11, the Council of the European Union completed the process of ratification of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union.

KYIV. July 26 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Piraeus Bank (Kyiv) and Nibulon have signed a loan agreement with a financing limit of UAH 3 million for five years.
“We are pleased to start cooperation with Nibulon, one of the largest Ukrainian producers and exporters of agricultural goods,” the director of the bank department for work with corporate clients, Oleksiy Aniper, said.
Nibulon was established in 1991. It is one of the largest operators in the grain market of the country. It has elevators with a capacity of about 2 million tonnes, as well as its own transshipment terminal with a capacity of 5 million tonnes in Mykolaiv.
Nibulon cultivates 82,000 hectares of land, owns and operates the second largest network of internal elevators and river terminals, a sea terminal in Mykolaiv. The company exports mainly maize, wheat and barley to more than 20 countries. The annual volume of exports reaches 4.5 million tonnes.

KYIV. July 26 (Interfax-Ukraine) – PJSC ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih (Dnipropetrovsk region) will invest $267 million in modernization of production in 2017, company CEO Paramjit Kahlon has told journalists.
According to him, the company works well in Ukraine.
“Over the past year ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih has produced 7.5 million tonnes of steel. I can say this company is the most stable for the last 4-5 years. The proximity to the Black Sea makes it unique in terms of a good geographical location. We have large investment plans in Ukraine as for modernization, because this enterprise has not received investments for many years,” he said.
At the same time, among the largest projects the top manager called the construction of a ladle furnace, a coke oven battery, and modernization of production.
“We plan to invest more than $1 billion in modernization in 2017-2020, this year the plan is $267 million,” Kahlon stated.
Concerning the sphere of responsibility in the group, the expert said he is responsible for enterprises in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, sales of products in Africa, sales in the countries of the Persian Gulf, India, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Turkey, for the functioning of the office in Dubai.

KYIV. July 26 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Public joint-stock company Ukrgazvydobuvannia has announced a tender to attract investors to restore production of fossil fuel from over 1,900 liquidated wells of the company on the ProZorro e-procurement system.
According to the conditions of the tender, gas produced from the restored wells and the wells themselves will belong to Ukrgazvydobuvannia, while the investor will receive the fixed fee for each cubic meter of produced gas. It is planned to apply production enhancement contracts (PEC).
The company has negative experience from joint operations when best wells were given to private companies and the state did not receive profit from them. This would not happen with the wells proposed at the tender,” the press service said, citing Ukrgazvydobuvannia Head Oleh Prokhorenko.
Ukrgazvydobuvannia, 100% owned by Naftogaz Ukrainy, is the country’s largest gas producer, providing about 75% of the country’s total gas production.

KYIV. July 25 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in October 2017 could provide a loan of up to $150 million to public joint-stock company Ukrzaliznytsia to buy gondola cars.
The bank said that the decision could be made on October 18, while earlier the date for the board meeting to discuss the issue was September 20, 2017.
The total cost of the project is estimated at up to $240.7 million, expected to be cofinanced by the company’s own contribution and grant funding of the technical cooperation assignments and grant financing of goals of technical cooperation.
The project is an integral part of the multi-stage program to upgrade rolling stock of Ukrzaliznytsia. The public joint-stock company seeks to buy around 24,000 gondola cars. The company is looking for bank support to partially finance the initial stage of the program, which envisages the purchase of up to 6,500 gondola cars.
Earlier it was planned that the tender to buy these gondola cars will be launched in Q3 2017.

KYIV. July 25 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine has permitted John Deere International GmbH (Switzerland) and Vaderstad LLC (Zhashkiv, Cherkasy region) to sign an agreement to sell Väderstad agricultural machinery in Ukraine by Vaderstad LLC only via the independent dealer chain of John Deere International, the press service of the committee has reported.
Väderstad is a family firm founded in 1962. Over the period it has grown from the producer of agricultural tools for local farms into a large international company. The company produces sowing machines and tillers.
Väderstad Ukraine is one of the subsidiaries of the company. The company also has subsidiaries in Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Russia.
Vaderstad LLC was registered in Ukraine in 2006.
John Deere is the global leader in agricultural machinery production. A representative office in Ukraine has been operating since 2008.