PrJSC Ukrainian Insurance Group (Kyiv) in January-September 2021 collected UAH 1.072 billion in net premiums, which is 8% more than in the same period in 2020.
According to the company’s report, posted in the information disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission, its gross premiums for this period increased by 22.3% – to UAH 1.673 billion. Some UAH 620.292 million (more by 73.4%) was transferred to reinsurance.
For the nine months the company paid out UAH 451.034 million, which is 1.2% more than in the same period a year earlier.
Administrative expenses of the company amounted to UAH 75.370 million (more by 23%), sales expenses – UAH 491.644 million (more by 16.6%)
The pretax financial result amounted to UAH 60.896 million, which is almost three times less than in the nine months of 2020. Net profit amounted to UAH 7.861 million against UAH 105.932 million profit for the same period a year earlier.
Ukrainian Insurance Group is a company with 100% foreign capital. It has been working in the Ukrainian conventional insurance market since 2000. It is part of one of the world’s largest insurance groups, the market leader in Central and Eastern Europe – Vienna Insurance.
About 10 million households in Ukraine use T2 digital air and pirated services, according to a study of the Ukrainian SWEET.TV online cinema.
“There are now about 10 million households in Ukraine that watch TV channels and films through free sources. These are T2 air and pirated services… In addition, there is a problem that Ukrainians, in principle, do not understand that they are using pirated services and viewing advertisements on such sites. It is equated to the legal purchase of content. Many do not even think that viewing content on pirate sites is illegal,” Director of SWEET.TV Oleksandr Rezunov said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, when buying a new TV set, most Ukrainians do not even receive an offer to subscribe to a legal Internet TV service because almost half of the equipment is bought in small, local stores.
All this, in Rezunov’s opinion, greatly hinders the development of the pay TV market in the country.
“T2 broadcasts free channels of media groups that show expensive Hollywood content. At the same time, OTT services have to pay royalties for placing each channel and each unit of content on their platforms. This approach to filling T2 broadcasting significantly slows down the development of the paid content market. In the place of media groups, I would wonder whether it is worth broadcasting expensive content for free,” he said.
The director of SWEET.TV also said that pirated resources are funded mainly by advertisers and supported by consumer interest. This means that it is worth introducing responsibility for placing advertisements on pirated services, as well as responsibility for watching pirated videos – as it already works in most European countries and the United States.
According to him, in order to fight piracy, SWEET.TV became a member of the Clear Sky anti-piracy initiative, as well as a member of the supervisory board for media and communications of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine.
SWEET.TV is a Ukrainian OTT platform with more than 260 TV channels, including HD and 4K, products from Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, etc.
The platform has direct contracts with Disney, Paramount, Universal, Sony and other international content producers for dubbing media products specifically for the territory of Ukraine, and not for the CIS. The service creates Ukrainian-language dubbing for cult Hollywood films in the Hollywood in Ukrainian project.
Windrose Airlines (Kyiv) from November 9 suspends flights on three routes: Kyiv – Chernivtsi – Kyiv, Kyiv – Mykolaiv – Kyiv and Kyiv – Uzhgorod – Kyiv, the press service of the airline reported on Friday.
Windrose said that after a comprehensive audit of the airports in Uzhgorod and Chernivtsi, the airline representatives recommended their management to improve some technical indicators that affect the performance of flights in the winter. Subject to the elimination of all comments, flights in these directions will be resumed.
Flights to Mykolaiv will not be performed in winter due to low demand.
The Council of the European Union has added Argentina, Colombia, Namibia and Peru to the list of countries for which travel restrictions should be lifted. Ukraine also remained on the list of countries for whose residents the EU Council recommends gradually lifting travel restrictions at external borders.
“Following a review under the recommendation on the gradual lifting of the temporary restrictions on non-essential travel into the EU, the Council updated the list of countries, special administrative regions and other entities and territorial authorities for which travel restrictions should be lifted. In particular, Argentina, Colombia, Namibia and Peru were added to the list,” the EU Council said in a statement on the website on Friday.
As stipulated in the Council’s recommendation, this list will continue to be reviewed every two weeks and updated as appropriate.
Ukraine and Turkey are considering the meeting of the Strategic Council between Ukraine and Turkey co-chaired by both presidents in February 2022 as an opportunity to sign a free trade agreement (FTA), Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said.
“Next year, Ukraine and Turkey will celebrate 30 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. To mark this occasion, we plan to hold the next session of the Strategic Council between Ukraine and Turkey under the co-chairmanship of both presidents. A number of agreements and documents are currently being prepared ahead of next year’s Strategic Council. Both sides see the February 2022 meeting as an opportunity to finally sign a long-awaited Turkish-Ukrainian free trade agreement following years of negotiations,” Kuleba wrote in an article for the Atlantic Council released on Thursday.
Once in force, he said, this free trade deal will significantly boost already strong trade ties between the two Black Sea countries and facilitate the establishment of new business links.
“With bilateral trade steadily growing, we also plan to hold a joint intergovernmental trade and economic commission in the near future,” Kuleba said.
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister also said that Ukraine and Turkey are developing plans to unite forces in the production of Ukrainian Antonov aircraft.
“Our Turkish friends were very impressed with the capabilities of Ukrainian Antonov aircraft for extinguishing fires. During the last meeting with my Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Lviv in October 2021, he expressed Turkey’s interest in Antonov aircraft. Ukraine welcomes this interest and is ready to explore the possibilities of joint aircraft production Antonov and international exports,” the minister said.
Kuleba said that with the climate crisis escalating, the threat of wildfires in Turkey and dozens of other countries around the globe looks like it is here to stay, along with increased demand for firefighting aviation.
“This makes the proposed aviation industry cooperation between Turkey and Ukraine strategically appealing. We plan to discuss this topic in more depth during our next Quadriga meeting of foreign and defense ministers, which will take place in December 2021 in Ankara,” he said.
Ukraine and Egypt will hold the Intergovernmental Joint Commission on Economic and Scientific and Technical Cooperation in Cairo on December 14 to December 16, the Economy Ministry said on the website, following the meeting of Deputy Economy Minister, Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka with Egyptian Ambassador to Ukraine Ayman Elgammal.
“We are currently conducting a study on the possibility of concluding an agreement on a free trade area with Egypt. Ukraine is interested in increasing the supply of agricultural and food products, vehicles, electrical equipment, engineering products,” the ministry’s press service said, citing Kachka.
He said that Egypt occupies a leading position among the countries of Africa and the Arab world in terms of trade with Ukraine. According to the results within the period of January-August 2021, trade between the countries amounted to $1.044 billion, for the entire last year to $1.7 billion.
According to the Ukrainian side, a major project of the Egyptian government, namely the construction of the new capital Vedian is interesting concerning the possibility of participation of Ukrainian business.
