In 2020, Ukrainian agricultural producers harvested 65.4 million tonnes of cereals and legumes from an area of 15.3 million hectares. The operational data of the regions on the results of the harvesting campaign was announced on Tuesday by Minister of Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture Ihor Petrashko.
According to a report on the ministry’s website, in particular, 25.1 million tonnes of wheat from 6.6 million hectares and 29.8 million tonnes of corn from 5.3 million hectares were harvested.
According to the State Statistics Service, in 2019 Ukraine harvested 75.1 million tonnes of cereals and legumes (70.1 million tonnes in 2018), of which 28.3 million tonnes of wheat (24.6 million tonnes) and 35.9 million tonnes of corn (35.8 million tonnes a year earlier).
“This year, the gross grain harvest amounted to 65.4 million tonnes, which is three times more than the needs of the domestic market, and also allows us to maintain a leading position in the export of agricultural products,” Petrashko said, commenting on the harvest results.
The Ministry for Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture said that the barley harvest this year was tentatively 7.8 million tonnes threshed from 2.4 million hectares (in 2019, according to the State Statistics Service, 8.9 million tonnes from 2.6 million hectares).
In addition, 516,200 tonnes of peas were harvested from an area of 237,700 hectares (573,000 tonnes from 253,400 hectares), 106,500 tonnes of buckwheat from 78,500 hectares (85,000 tonnes from 69,200 hectares), and 244,000 tonnes of millet from 150,400 hectares (169,700 tonnes from 93,300 hectares).
The sunflower harvest this year preliminary amounted to 13.1 million tonnes from 6.4 million hectares (15.3 million tonnes from almost 6 million hectares), rapeseed – 2.6 million tonnes from 1.1 million hectares (3.3 million tonnes from 1.3 million hectares) and soybeans – 2.8 million tonnes from 1.3 million hectares (3.7 million tonnes from 1.6 million hectares).
Farmers also harvested 9.2 million tonnes of sugar beet from 216,000 hectares, compared with 10.2 million tonnes from 221,000 hectares last year.
The minister explained the decline in the harvest of most crops by atypical weather conditions, but stressed that traditionally agricultural production in Ukraine has a surplus.
The national postal operator Ukrposhta begins cooperation with the Kasta marketplace.
As reported by Ukrposhta on Tuesday, in December, the companies opened 50 partner offices.
Fitting rooms will be installed in co-branded post offices, where customers can check if the goods ordered on the Kasta marketplace fit them.
Partner offices will operate in Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Kharkiv, Poltava, Lutsk, Vinnytsia, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, Mykolaiv, Severodonetsk, Kryvy Rih, Nikopol, Khmelnytsky, Zhytomyr and other cities.
Delivery of goods purchased on the Kasta website to Ukrposhta partner offices will be free for holders of KastaBlack loyalty program cards, and in the absence of a card, the delivery will cost UAH 25 regardless of the amount and size of the order.
“According to payment systems, in Ukraine in the first quarter of 2020, the volume of e-commerce increased significantly, and merchants began to use digital channels for sales even more actively: the number of online payments in grocery retail increased by 12%, and in certain categories, such as appliances and electronics, the number of purchases on the Internet increased by 44%. We see this tendency in accordance with the increase in the volume of parcels. Therefore, we continue to expand the circle of our cooperation with the largest online stores,” Deputy Director General for business development of Ukrposhta Olena Stopina said.
“For our customers, the coverage and, accordingly, the delivery speed will expand. We do not plan to stop at 50 offices, we will actively develop this area of cooperation,” Head of the delivery service and the network of KastaPost offices Oleksandr Bilousov.
Ukrposhta has the largest office network in Ukraine, almost 11,000 post offices. The national postal operator delivers items even to the most remote settlements and covers 100% of the territory of Ukraine.
Kasta is a marketplace for clothes, shoes and accessories in Ukraine.
Interpipe, the international vertically integrated pipe and wheel company, in January-September 2020 received $ 216.394 million in EBITDA, which is 8% more than in the same period last year.
According to a press release of the company, based on the unaudited IFRS consolidated financial statements for the nine months of 2020, in January-September revenue fell by 23%, to $ 660 million, capital investments by 34%, to $ 27 million.
The press release emphasizes that the company’s net debt has reached a de-minimis level of $ 12 million with a net leverage ratio (net debt to EBITDA) that has dropped to almost zero (0.05x).
In the third quarter of 2020, the company’s revenue decreased by 12% compared to the previous quarter, to $ 192 million, EBITDA increased by 7%, to $ 67 million, the amount of capital investments increased by 12%, to $ 9 million.
“In Q3 2020 Interpipe operated in a quite challenging environment across all markets. The COVID-19 pandemic as well as oil and gas prices downturn led to the global decline in demand for pipes, particularly, OCTG products. Moreover, lockdowns and reduction of freight turnover hit global railway wheel market,” the report says.
“In the first nine months of 2020, Interpipe’s overall revenue declined by 23% y-o-y to $ 660 million primarily due to a decline in pipe sales volumes and prices. Revenue from pipes shrank by 35% y-o-y to $ 349 million whereas the railway product revenue decreased by 6% y-o-y to $ 216 million,” according to the document.
“Nevertheless, Interpipe managed to achieve а sound nine-month 2020 EBITDA which amounted to $ 216 million, up by 8% y-o-y. On the back of the COVID-19 pandemic and reinstatement of the anti-dumping duty in the Customs Union the railway product segment was the main contributor to the EBITDA growth: its pass-through EBITDA went up by 24% y-o-y to $ 161 million and comprised 75% of the total EBITDA for the nine months of 2020,” it said.
“At the same time, the pipe segment EBITDA for the first nine months of 2020 drastically dropped by 79% y-o-y to $ 10 million despite stable sales of linepipes and some recovery of OCTG in Q3 2020,” it said.
“As of September 30, 2020, gross debt went down substantially to $ 122 million following the partial redemption of the notes in amount of $ 97 million in August 2020. In addition, net debt achieved an unprecedently low level of $ 12 million bringing down consolidated net leverage ratio (net debt to EBITDA) almost to zero (0.05x),” the report says.
“Despite extremely harsh business environment in Q3 and the first nine months of 2020 Interpipe kept showing a solid financial performance. The company retrieved its full financial stability and flexibility having achieved effectively a zero net leverage. Our progress and substantially improved credit profile have been also appreciated and confirmed by international credit rating agencies – Fitch Ratings and S&P Global – assigning to Interpipe ‘B’ rating with stable outlook,” CEO at Interpipe Fadi Hraibi commented on the results.
Bus operator FlixBus has started selling tickets via the state-owned PrivatBank (Kyiv), the press service of PrivatBank said on Tuesday.
According to the press release, tickets, in particular, can be bought using the Privat24 mobile app and the Privat24 web interface, as well as at the bank’s cash desks and via self-service terminals. At the same time, using the bank’s ticket services, you can book any FlixBus ticket to 34 European countries, as well as Turkey and the United States.
After payment, the customer will receive an online ticket to the passenger’s email, which will also be available in the Privat24 app, as indicated in the message.
The bank said that the PrivatBank bus ticket sales service was launched in 2010, currently tickets can be bought via 13,000 terminals or at one of the bank’s 2,500 offices throughout Ukraine.
According to PrivatBank, more than 460,000 people have already used the service since April 2017.
FlixBus, that offers bus transportation in Europe and the U.S., was founded in 2013. It works on a partnership model with regional bus carriers who provide their buses and route documents, while FlixBus deals with sales, marketing and schedule management.
TAS Insurance Group (Kyiv) collected UAH 162.06 million in premiums in November, which is 11.7% more than the company’s receipts in November last year, according to the insurer’s website.
The press release notes that 35.19% of premiums fall on OSAGO – UAH 57.03 million of premiums, which is 7.3% more than in November 2019. Under KASKO agreements, UAH 47.88 million of premiums were attracted, which is 29.54% of the total income of the insurer and is 30.4% more than the corresponding figure for November 2019.
The share of Green Card in the company’s portfolio in November of this year amounted to 13.09%: on such policies UAH 21.21 million of premiums were attracted during the month.
In November, the company paid UAH 84.34 million of compensation under concluded insurance contracts, which is 26.1% more than the amount paid by the insurer for the same period a year earlier.
Under OSAGO policies, UAH 32.27 million was reimbursed during the month, which is 38.27% of the company’s total payments for the month and is 19.2% more than the corresponding figure for November 2019.
The second place in the portfolio of payments with a share of 29.03% at the end of the month is taken by KASKO: under land transport insurance contracts, UAH 24.48 million was reimbursed (more by 41%).
The mobile operator Kyivstar is starting to implement VoLTE (voice-over-LTE) technology in its 4G network, which will allow subscribers to make ordinary phone calls through a high-speed mobile Internet.
As noted in the operator’s statement on Tuesday, this technology will work throughout the country by the end of 2020, where the operator’s 4G network is provided.
At first, VoLTE will be available for contract subscribers who actively use most of Kyivstar’s services. And during 2021, the technology will become available to prepaid subscribers.
“In less than three years, 85% of Ukrainians gained access to 4G. In terms of construction rates, Kyivstar is ahead of even the countries of the European Union, which took an average of five years to get the same result. This is a great achievement of the company, which gives us the opportunity introduce new technologies, such as VoLTE. Due to this technology, not only residents of large cities, but also villages, will receive the best quality of voice communication. After all, it will work in a modern 4G network,” President of Kyivstar Oleksandr Komarov said.
The operator said that due to voice transmission via 4G, subscribers will receive better sound quality during calls, and the connection between them will be faster, since the smartphone will not switch between different standards.
The launch of the new technology throughout the country, where 4G from Kyivstar works, will be completed in December 2020.
“The next stage is that the ability to use this technology on subscribers’ smartphones, depends on the device manufacturers. After all, the peculiarity of VoLTE is that smartphone manufacturers separately activate this technology in the network of each mobile operator. For this, Kyivstar is actively negotiating with the most popular brands in Ukraine,” the company said.
According to the operator, such models of Apple smartphones have already been activated: iPhone 12 and 12 Pro, iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max, iPhone XR and XS MAX, iPhone SE, and during 2021 smartphone manufacturers will activate VoLTE on other popular models that support this technology.
