Farmak pharmaceutical company (Kyiv) in the first half of the year ranked fifth in the pharmaceutical market of Uzbekistan, the company’s share was 2.3%.
Anton Zubov, the director of marketing and sales to the CIS countries of Farmak, told Interfax-Ukraine that in January-June 2021 the company increased sales in the Uzbek market by 61% in monetary terms compared to the same period in 2020.
“Our growth would have been even higher, however, during the pandemic, we were forced to limit the export of enoxaparin sodium (included in the COVID-19 treatment protocols) in favor of meeting the needs of the Ukrainian patient as a matter of priority,” he said.
According to Zubov, Uzbekistan is a key country in the company’s export sales. In the structure of shipments of Farmak products to the CIS countries, it occupies 50%.
Speaking about the main drivers of market development, Zubov noted the focus on the purchase of vaccines and the rapid growth of COVID-associated drugs, mainly antibiotics and anticoagulants.
“It was the increase in the consumption of these drugs that led to such a significant increase in the market this year,” he said.
Zubov stressed that export is a strategic direction for Farmak, and Uzbekistan ranks first in its overall structure.
“According to the export assessment data for the first half of 2021, Farmak is the undisputed leader among Ukrainian pharmaceutical companies supplying their products to the CIS countries. Our share is 32%, which is more than twice the share of our closest competitor. The growth for the same period in relation to the previous year amounted to 23%, this year – 9%. The market share increased by 1.4 percentage points,” he said.
Zubov said that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the first place was taken by the Flenox drug, which is used to treat and prevent blood clots.
In addition, the endocrinological portfolio of the company, with the key drug Dialipon, is also in demand.
The company also notes a consistently high demand for the antiviral group, in particular, for the Amizon drug and the Picolax laxative drug.
At the same time, Zubov noted that, like many countries of the CIS region, Uzbekistan is trying to protect the interests of domestic producers.
“We see that Belarus is moving this way, introducing strict quotas on imported goods and restricting imports on pharmacy shelves. In Kazakhstan, for example, there is a “third is a crowd” rule, when, if there are two offers from local producers, the third offer from the importer is automatically withdrawn. Uzbekistan also actively defends the interests of its manufacturers. Assessing the obvious trends, our company plans to localize production of solid dosage forms in the territory of this country,” he said.
According to Zubov, at present, Farmak is actively developing a project to localize production in Uzbekistan on the basis of a pharmaceutical cluster, which is being built near Tashkent.
“Farmak has already declared its intentions to be localized in Uzbekistan. At the moment, we are actively negotiating with the directorate of the pharmaceutical cluster and are now at the stage of negotiating an investment agreement, “he said.
Zubov recalled that the declared volume of investments is $ 10 million, but “already now we see that, in fact, the amount of investment is likely to exceed the originally planned one.”
“Good equipment and specialists are expensive,” he explained.
Zubov said that traditionally the pharmaceutical market of Uzbekistan is the fourth largest in the CIS. According to IQVIA, its volume in 2020 amounted to $ 1.3 billion against $ 1.6 billion in Kazakhstan, but Uzbekistan is developing more dynamically and may take third place in 2022.
In January-June 2021, the pharmaceutical market of Uzbekistan grew by 75% in monetary terms (in U.S. dollars) and by 45% in natural terms (in the number of packages).
Qatar seeks a sustainable investment partnership with Ukraine, the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Acting Minister of Finance of Qatar H E Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari said during the second meeting of the joint commission on economic, trade and technical cooperation between the two countries.
“In August 2020, the Qatari company QTerminals signed an agreement with the Ukrainian side on the concession for Olvia seaport in Mykolaiv. In the next five years, it is planned to invest in the development of the Ukrainian port and infrastructure. We will continue to expand the investment partnership,” he said.
“Today’s meeting of the commission is a necessary tool to achieve this goal,” he added.
Following the meeting, the co-chairs of the commission namely Minister of Commerce and Industry of Qatar H E Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari and Ukrainian Minister of Finance Serhiy Marchenko signed a protocol on amending the agreement between the governments of Ukraine and Qatar on avoidance of double taxation and prevention of tax evasion in relation to income tax.
The parties also discussed further steps in the development of bilateral relations and defined promising areas of cooperation, in particular, attracting investments, developing entrepreneurship and cooperation in tourism, agriculture, infrastructure, energy, health care, and financial sector, the report said.
“The meeting reaffirmed the desire of the two states to intensify economic activity. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing an upward trend in bilateral trade and hope to continue this positive trend. One of our top priorities is to attract investment in the economies of the two countries and strengthen business cooperation,” Marchenko said.
The Ministry of Finance recalled the first meeting of the joint commission on cooperation between Ukraine and Qatar took place in 2018.
Ukrainian importers in January-August fully used quotas for duty-free import of pork from the European Union, further import of chilled pork will be subject to a 12% duty, and frozen pork – 10%, this was reported on the website of the Pig Breeders of Ukraine association. “As of September 1, some 20,000 tonnes of chilled and frozen pork from the EU countries were brought to Ukraine. This corresponds to the quota for duty-free supply of pork from the European Union countries established under the economic part of the Association Agreement. Since these limits have been used this year, each next kilogram of European chilled pork will cost importers 12% more due to the duty, and frozen pork meat will rise in price by 10%,” the organization said.
According to the association, there has been some recovery in import activity this year, which confirms the use of the pork import quota in August, while in previous years the import quota was used in November-December.
It clarified that Ukrainian importers have similar agreements on duty-free supplies of up to 14,400 tonnes of pork from Canada (the quota was used by 9%) and up to 1,700 tonnes from the UK (no deliveries from this country were made in 2021).
“If the import of raw meat from these countries becomes economically attractive for the importer, the supply of frozen pork is unlikely to have a significant impact on the domestic pork market. In addition, the expected changes in exchange rates in the fall will also increase the entry barrier for imported raw materials,” the association concluded.
United States President Joseph Biden hopes to visit Ukraine again in the future.
Biden himself made the relevant statement on Wednesday, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to the journalist of the U.S. edition of CBSNews Ed O’Keefe.
“U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Biden says the United States is ‘firmly committed’ to Ukrainian sovereignty ‘in the race of Russian aggression.’ He added later he hopes to visit Ukraine again in the future,” the journalist said on Twitter.
As reported, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that diplomats are working on preparations for the visit of President of the United States Joseph Biden to Ukraine.
JSC First Kyiv Machine-Building Plant (the former Bilshovyk plant) will be put up for a privatization auction with a starting price of UAH 1.39 billion, which was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers on Wednesday, Dmytro Sennychenko, head of the State Property Fund (SPF) of Ukraine, said. “Today, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has accepted the terms of its privatization. As they say, now a small [not so] challenge remains to find, together with a representative of Big-4, KPMG Ukraine, investors for this asset,” he said on Facebook on Wednesday evening.
According to Sennychenko, the commission will determine the date of the auction in the near future.
“The experience of previous competitions held by the SPF allows us to confidently predict that we will see a significantly larger number on the final scoreboard,” the SPF head said.
He recalled that the plant was established in 1881, when a Swiss entrepreneur bought about 4.4 hectares of land on Shuliavka in Kyiv, and six months later a new enterprise appeared here – Kyiv iron cast and mechanical plant.
“Over the next more than a hundred years, the plant changed the scale of production, profile, name, and experienced stunning transformations – from an unconditional flagship of the industry to an abandoned technically obsolete site,” Sennychenko wrote, adding that perhaps the enterprise will again interest some Swiss investor.
As reported, in accordance with the privatization conditions approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, the new owner of the enterprise must fulfill a number of social and economic conditions, in particular, the payment of wage arrears and single social security tax, the implementation of the current collective agreement and the prevention of dismissal within a certain period.
International IT company Ciklum Group Limited (one of the largest software developers in Ukraine) announced the acquisition of Czech software developer CN Group from Genesis Capital, one of the Central European private equity funds.
The deal will strengthen Ciklum’s market position in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Ciklum said on Wednesday.
The amount of the deal was not disclosed.
As part of the agreement, Genesis Capital, which invested in CN Group in 2019, sold 100% of its shares in CN Group.
CN Group is headquartered in Prague, with five nearshore delivery locations in Central Europe. The company’s 360 digital technology specialists will become a powerful addition to the Ciklum team of more than 3,500 engineers, designers, product managers and data scientists.
“The combination of CN Group and Ciklum will build on each company’s long history of delivering high-impact products and platforms to clients across Europe and North America while opening new fields of opportunity for both. With delivery across the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, and Spain, supported by a best-in-class employee culture and learning environment for engineering talent, the united companies will represent one of the largest digital transformation providers in the CEE region with global reach,” the report said.
CN Group has been delivering software engineering, IT consulting and mechanical design engineering for over 27 years. The company serves 62 international customers, including Procter & Gamble, Strabag, TF Bank, Bunte.de and FlatexDEGIRO, across more than seven markets.
Ciklum is a global IT company established in 2002 that provides software development and testing services, is engaged in innovative research and development (R&D), work with data sets (Big Data) and engineering consulting. It has offices in several countries, including Ukraine. In Ukraine, Ciklum is one of the largest IT companies, employing over 2,600 people.
