In January 2025, imports of aluminum and aluminum products increased by 9.4% year-on-year to $36.658 million (in December – $36.943 million). In January, aluminum exports increased by 17.9% to $9.431 million, while in December this figure was $8.426 million.
Aluminum is widely used as a structural material. The main advantages of aluminum are its lightness, stampability, corrosion resistance, high thermal conductivity, and non-toxicity of its compounds. In particular, these properties have made aluminum extremely popular in the production of cookware, aluminum foil in the food industry, and packaging. The first three properties have made aluminum the main raw material in the aviation and aerospace industries (recently it has been replaced by composite materials, primarily carbon fiber). After the construction and production of packaging, such as aluminum cans and foil, the energy sector is the largest consumer of the metal.
The housing price index in Ukraine reached 112.7% in 2024, up from 114.5% in 2023 and 113% in 2022, the State Statistics Service (Ukrstat) reported.
According to it, in the primary market, housing prices rose by 15% in 2024, accelerating growth compared to 2023, when the figure was 12.8%. At the same time, one-bedroom apartments went up by 14.9%, two-bedroom apartments by 15.3%, and three-bedroom apartments by 14.8%.
At the same time, housing prices in the secondary market slowed down. Thus, the secondary market rose by 11.6% on average, which is 4 percentage points lower than in 2023. One-bedroom apartments in the secondary market went up by 11.5%, two-bedroom apartments by 11.9%, and three-bedroom apartments by 11.5%.
According to the agency, in the fourth quarter of 2024, the house price index fell to 113.1% compared to 116.1% in the fourth quarter of 2023. In particular, in October-December 2024, prices in the primary market increased by 15.8% compared to 14.6% in October-December 2023, while in the secondary market, the price growth rate slowed down to 11.9% compared to 17%, respectively.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, the housing price index increased by 0.6 percentage points to 103.5% compared to the third quarter. In particular, in the primary market, housing prices rose by an average of 4%: one-bedroom apartments – by 3.9%, two-bedroom apartments – by 4%, three-bedroom apartments – by 4.1%.
In the secondary market, housing prices rose by 3.3% in the fourth quarter of 2023, compared to 2.5% in the third quarter. One-room apartments rose in price by 3.2%, two- and three-room apartments – by 3.3% and 3.4%, respectively.
The State Statistics Service noted that the figures exclude the temporarily occupied territories and parts of the territories where military operations are (were) underway.
State-owned PrivatBank increased its net profit by 6.3% to UAH 40.14 billion in 2024, retaining its leadership in the top five most profitable banks in the country, according to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
Privat is followed by two other state-owned banks, Oschadbank and Ukreximbank. Oschad increased its net profit by almost 2.5 times to UAH 14.83 billion compared to Eximbank, moving it to third place with a profit of UAH 5.56 billion (+71% y-o-y).
The fourth and fifth positions were taken by banks with foreign capital: Raiffeisen and OTP. The former’s net profit decreased by 10.6% to UAH 4.28 billion, while OTP increased its net profit by 10.9% to UAH 4.12 billion.
The second five most profitable banks in 2024 were headed by Credit Agricole, which increased its net profit by 46.5% to UAH 4.09 billion. It also included: Ukrsibbank – UAH 4.08 billion (-3.4% compared to 2023), FUIB – UAH 3.94 billion (-0.3%), and Sense – UAH 3.81 billion (+33.3%). Universalbank (mono) closes the list, which was able to almost double its net profit last year to UAH 3.72 billion.
According to the NBU statistics, net profit was above the UAH 1 billion mark in four other banks: Citibank – UAH 3.34 billion (-6.9%), Ukrgasbank – UAH 2.91 billion (+50.4%), as well as Pivdenny Bank and A-Bank, which increased their net profit by 2.2 and 2.9 times to UAH 2 billion and UAH 1.36 billion, respectively.
The Cabinet of Ministers has allocated UAH 148.21 million for the construction of new border crossing points in 2025, according to the government’s Procedure for the Use of Funds Provided for in the State Budget for the Development of the Road Network and Maintenance.
In particular, UAH 21.8 million is earmarked for the construction of a border crossing point for the Dyida-Berehradaroc road connection and a service area in front of the checkpoint. UAH 4.5 million is allocated for the construction of an entry-exit control point for the opening of the Velyka Palad-Nagyhodosh road border crossing point with the placement of a complex of facilities intended for public services and connection to engineering networks. UAH 81.8 million is allocated for the construction of the Velyka Palad-Nagyhodos automobile border crossing point.
UAH 20 million has been allocated for the construction of an international checkpoint on the Ukrainian-Romanian state border between Bila Tserkva (Ukraine) and Sighetu Marmatiei (Romania) with access roads to the road border bridge. Also, UAH 20 million was allocated for the construction of service areas in front of the Uzhhorod checkpoint.
Earlier it was reported that according to the Operational Plan of the Strategy for the Development of Border Infrastructure with the EU and the Republic of Moldova until 2030, Ukraine plans to build 16 international automobile checkpoints on the border with the EU. In particular, 7 of them were planned to be built in Zakarpattia region.
In particular, UAH 1.5 million out of the required UAH 1.08 billion has already been allocated for the construction of the Dyida automobile checkpoint in 2024. In 2026, it is planned to allocate UAH 355 million, in 2027 – UAH 400 million, in 2028 – UAH 333.05 million at the expense of the state budget and international technical assistance, in particular the CEF, the text of the operational plan says.
In 2024, UAH 1.45 million was allocated for the construction of the Velyka Palad automobile checkpoint in Zakarpattia region out of the UAH 386.01 million required for the construction of the checkpoint and its service area. In 2025, it was planned to allocate UAH 382.56 million from the state budget and international technical assistance.
The construction of the Bila Tserkva checkpoint was launched in 2024, with UAH 19.5 million allocated out of the required UAH 1.51 billion for the construction of the checkpoint, access roads, and a road border bridge. In 2025, UAH 174.08 million is expected to be allocated, in 2026 – UAH 963.42 million, and in 2028 – UAH 362.5 million from the state budget and international technical assistance.
As reported earlier, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the procedure for using funds for the development and maintenance of roads at the expense of UAH 12.6 billion provided for in the budget program “Development of the Network and Maintenance of Public Roads”.
Imports to Ukraine of power generating sets and rotating electrical converters (UKTZED 8502) in January-2025 increased almost eightfold in monetary terms compared to January-2024, to $178.36 million, according to statistics from the State Customs Service (SCS).
According to the State Customs Service, in January of this year, the most frequently imported electric generators and converters were from Austria (14.1% of total exports of these products or $25.13 million), the United States (13.6% or $24.2 million) and Romania (13.3% or $23.7 million), while a year earlier it was the Czech Republic ($6.7 million), China ($5.6 million) and Turkey ($3.4 million).
In addition, in January, imports of electric batteries and separators to Ukraine more than tripled to $94.83 million, most often imported from China (77.8%), Bulgaria (11%) and Taiwan (3.3%).
As reported, at the end of July 2024, Ukraine exempted the import of power generating equipment and batteries to Ukraine from customs duties and VAT.
According to the State Customs Service, in 2024, imports of electric generators and converters to Ukraine increased by 3.7% compared to 2023, to $732.5 million, and batteries more than doubled to $950.6 million.
State-owned Sense Bank (Kyiv) has entered into a multicurrency credit line agreement with OKKO Group equivalent to EUR 20 million, the bank’s press service reports.
According to the terms of the agreement, the funds can be used for both investment purposes and working capital replenishment, and the term of the agreement is 5 years.
Commenting on the event, Olena Gorobets, Sense Bank’s Director of Corporate Business for Industrial Enterprises, noted that providing financial instruments for critical enterprises is one of the priorities of the financial institution.
“Even in today’s challenging environment, our company finds ways to develop and invest in the Ukrainian economy, provide customers with quality fuel and quality service. An important key to this is financial mobility, the ability to freely operate working capital at any time. The new credit line gives us such opportunities,” comments OKKO Vice President for Finance Nazar Kupibida.
As reported, on February 10, Sense Bank launched the grant program “Support for Energy Resilience of Micro and Small Enterprises in Ukraine”, which is being implemented by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and the German government and is being implemented by the German federal company Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH together with the Entrepreneurship Development Fund.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), as of December 1, 2024, Sens Bank was ranked 9th among 62 banks operating at that time (UAH 143.56 billion) in terms of total assets. According to them, the net profit of the financial institution for this period amounted to UAH 3.83 billion.
