The State Agency for Infrastructure Projects of Ukraine (Ukrinfraproekt) has fulfilled the state road safety program by 72% in 2020, head of the agency Kyrylo Khomiakov said during the presentation of the report for the past year on Friday.
According to him, in 2018 the program was not completed, in 2019 it was completed by 30%.
“If we talk about the tasks of the state program, 42 out of 45 tasks for 2020 have been fully completed. One of the tasks – the construction of roundabouts – has not been fully completed due to the SACI (State Architectural and Construction Inspectorate) reform and weather conditions, but we will complete this by the middle of the second quarter,” he said.
Among the most important projects implemented by the agency in 2020, Khomiakov named: the installation of 20 Weigh-in-Motion (WiM) complexes on the roads; purchase of 220 auto-fixing complexes, which are now being installed on state roads; installation of four integrated speed control systems (Phantoms) and 72 TrueCam 2.
According to him, in general, in 2020, UAH 3.168 billion was allocated for this program, 100% of which were procured, contracts were signed in the amount of UAH 2.993 billion (95%).
The Parkovyi data center (Ante Mediam LLC, Kyiv) notes the growing demand for server equipment placement in data processing centers (data centers).
As member of the supervisory board of the Parkovyi data center Tetiana Honcharova has told Interfax-Ukraine, the lockdown and its consequences have caused great demand in the digitalization of business.
“We are seeing an increase in the demand for server equipment placement. The reason for the demand in this segment is the unprofitability for the business to maintain and provide its own server rooms with the required level of security,” she said.
According to Honcharova, the trends of 2020 were a noticeable increase in interest in cloud services from the public sector, as well as an increased attention to cloud data backup from large businesses.
She also noted that, despite the pandemic, 2020 turned out to be quite productive for the cloud services market.
“As for the Parkovyi, we see a 20% growth over 2020. On average in the market, according to our analysts, over the next five years, there will be a 15% growth annually. Considering that our team started work in the middle of the year, the growth of Parkovyi in 2020 exceeded the market average,” Honcharova said.
The Parkovyi data center, located in the territory of the Parkovy congress and exhibition center in Kyiv, was put into operation in May 2013. It is certified according to the TIER III security level, owns an international certificate in the field of information security ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and a certificate of conformity for technical information protection systems issued by the State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection of Ukraine.
The total area of the data center is 2,730 square meters, the number of racks is 400 units. The data center is connected to two independent energy sources with a capacity of 4 MW.
The volume of sales of companies operating in the service sector of Ukraine in the fourth quarter of 2020 amounted to UAH 264.2 billion, which in comparable prices was 10.4% higher than the level of the fourth quarter of 2019, the State Statistics Service has said.
According to the report, the volume of services provided to the population amounted to 17.4% of the total volume of services provided in the country (UAH 46.05 billion).
The State Statistics Service reminded that in the fourth quarter of 2020 the volume of service provided by companies grew by 10.9% compared with the previous quarter.
Clear Energy Group plans to launch the fourteenth biogas plant for the group this month, the group’s CEO, Andriy Hrinenko, has said.
“We have built 14 landfill stations on landfill gas. These are, in particular, Kharkiv, Bila Tserkva, Kryvy Rih, Kherson, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kremenchuk, Lutsk, Chernihiv, Poltava. In March, we are launching a biogas station in Ternopil,” he said in interview to the online portal Energy Reform.
Thus, the total capacity of all biogas plants of the group will be 15.1 MW, which is 75% of the entire market for electricity generation from landfill gas in Ukraine.
According to Hrinenko, the group sees great prospects in the development of landfills for the production of electricity and heat, and the decision to work in this area was made several years ago, based on the fact that the market for processing solid household waste remained underestimated.
“Now in Ukraine, 10 million tonnes of household waste is produced annually. This is gold under our feet, which we do not use. It can give 1.2 billion kWh of electricity and 3.5 million Gcal of thermal energy per year if properly utilized. We can also generate one billion cubic meters of biogas from this waste,” he explained.
At the same time, Hrinenko noted that the development of this sector needs to be streamlined at the legislative level, for which the group has developed a bill on energy waste disposal, the adoption of which will be sought in the Verkhovna Rada after the presentation to the mayors of the cities.
“Firstly, we want to achieve the same protected cost item for utilities for paying for heat generated from waste as they have for paying for gas. Secondly, we do not ask for any inflated tariffs. We want to sell electricity at the day ahead market price, but give the basic rules,” he defined the main points of the bill.
The Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine intends to resolve the issue of launching the U.S. payment system PayPal in Ukraine.
“We have been communicating with PayPal for a year now. A meeting with our team was held in Davos. We are holding Zoom meetings. There are certain questions. Ukraine, in principle, was not present on the PayPal expansion business map. I don’t want to make spoilers, but we are working on it. We ask the CEO of PayPal questions even in social networks in comments,” Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said in the format of an Internet reception desk live on YouTube on Tuesday.
He said that PayPal shall enter Ukraine, and the Ministry of Digital Industry plans to definitely resolve this issue.
Chinese buyers of shares in Motor Sich (Zaporizhia) violated their obligation to invest $250 million in 2018 and obtain permission from the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU), but it is impractical to completely nationalize the enterprise and it is worth leaving 35% to the Chinese and the controlling stake to the state, President of Motor Sich Viacheslav Bohuslayev has said.
“They deceived us… There are no Chinese investors and there is no investment program. There are promises: in the agreement for the acquisition of shares in 2018, they [should have paid] $250 million – not a kopiika [was seen],” journalist Igor Solovey posted a video on his Facebook with a speech of Bohuslayev at a meeting of the national security, defense and intelligence parliamentary committee on March 4.
Bohuslayev said that in such a situation he and the trade union support the decision of the country’s president to impose sanctions against the Chinese shareholders of Motor Sich.
“I hold daily teleconferences with Chinese customers. I explain to them: if I, Bohuslayev, violate Chinese laws on the territory of China, what would you do to me? So your dear Wang Jing [was sanctioned by Ukraine] should not violate Ukrainian laws on the territory of Ukraine,” the president of the company said.
He confirmed that in 2016, Chinese partners provided a $100 million loan at a critical juncture, which must be repaid in 2026, and the company is preparing to do so.
At the same time, Bohuslayev, who before the deal with the Chinese was one of the largest shareholders of Motor Sich, after the committee meeting spoke out against the proposal to completely nationalize the enterprise, as this would entail significant budgetary expenditures.
“We need to negotiate with the Chinese: allow them to have 35%, the rest needs to be sold to the state, in a civilized manner. The ambassador must be explained (that) our state does not allow a foreign citizen to manage our enterprise,” he said, while insisting that a controlling stake belonged to the government.
“You can’t just break off relations with Chinese friends… For no reason in particular, (so that) we don’t give a damn about China, it is better not to behave like that,” Bohuslayev said.
