The pharmaceutical company Darnitsa invested EUR10 million in technological projects in 2019, Dmytro Shymkiv, the chairman of the board of directors of Darnitsa Group, has said.
“In 2019, we invested EUR10 million in technology projects, research, development and production of new drugs. This is 24% more than in 2018,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Shymkiv said that the structure of Darnitsa’s investments includes three areas: about 48% is investment in new products, 34% in technological development and 16% in digitalization.
Darnitsa invested EUR 2.33 million in digitalization, and more than EUR 30 million in new products in 2015-2019.
He noted that in 2020, Darnitsa launched nine new products in therapeutic areas such as cardiology, neurology, mental health, and completed eight bioequivalence studies of its drugs in the EU, six more studies are ongoing.
Since the beginning of the new 2020/2021 marketing year (MY, July-June) and as of December 7, Ukraine has exported 22.3 million tonnes of grains and legumes, which is 4 million tonnes less than on the same date of the last MY.
According to the information and analytical portal of the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine, to date, 12.1 million tonnes of wheat (-1.7 million tonnes), 3.71 million tonnes of barley (+ 0.14 million tonnes) and 6.12 million tonnes of corn ( -2.48 million tonnes) have been exported.
As of December 7 of this year, 70,500 tonnes of flour were also exported.
As reported, Ukraine exported a record 57.2 million tonnes of cereals, legumes and flour in 2019/2020 MY, which is 13.5% more than in the previous MY.
Export of honey from Ukraine in 11 months of 2020 reached an absolute record – 69,084 tonnes with a total value of $117.5 million, national consultant to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Hanna Burka has said.
“There is less than a month left before the start of the New Year 2021, but there is already a record for the export of honey. Its export from Ukraine in 11 months of 2020 reached an absolute record – 69,800 tonnes for a total of $117.5 million. The previous record was set in 2017 – 67,800 tonnes ($133.9 million),” she wrote on her Facebook page.
According to the expert, high demand for Ukrainian honey is observed from the countries of the European Union. It is due to a number of reasons: uncertainty with the further development of the situation with COVID-19, respectively, the active formation of residues for the entire 2020/21 season; poor honey harvest in the EU: according to preliminary estimates, its harvest fell by 40% due to unfavorable weather conditions.
Ukraine in 2019 exported 49,740 tonnes of honey (12 months), in 2018 – 41,740 tonnes.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) may provide Zaporizhia with a $55 million long-term loan to finance a package of initiatives aimed at improving energy efficiency, infrastructure development and transport logistics.
The board of directors plans to consider this project on February 15, 2021, the bank said on its website.
IFC plans to provide Zaporizhia with up to EUR 36.7 million of a loan from its own funds and to organize another EUR 18.3 million through the Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Program (MCPP).
It is assumed that the funds will be used for the installation of an intelligent traffic control system, street lighting and modernization of control centers, the purchase of electric buses, trolleybuses and related infrastructure, (reconstruction of traction equipment, substations, the purchase of road construction and cleaning equipment, as well as the reconstruction of roads and the development of public parks.
In addition, IFC will help develop a Smart City 2.0 strategy for Zaporizhia
The State Agency of Ukraine for the Management of the Exclusion Zone and the mobile operator Vodafone Ukraine are working on a pilot project for the construction of a fire safety monitoring system on the territory of the Exclusion Zone in Chornobyl.
According to the message of the Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine posted on its website on Monday, the first step of the project was to expand the coverage of Chornobyl with high-speed mobile Internet 4G in the 900 MHz range and install a base station there.
The next stage will be testing the operation of thermal imagers, which will be installed at a height and cover a significant area. The new system will quickly identify the place of fire using video cameras and thermal imagers.
“Modern technologies open up ample opportunities for instant detection of fires in forest areas. Thanks to cooperation with Vodafone Ukraine, NB-IoT technology will start operating in Chornobyl, which is built on the concept of the ‘Internet of Things’ and allows safe and fast transfer of information between objects. And it, in turn, makes it possible to instantly respond to fire situations and localize them,” Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Roman Abramovsky is quoted as saying.
He also stressed that effective prevention of fires directly depends on technical equipment and the use of smart technologies.
At the same time, Abramovsky noted that the expansion of mobile coverage will contribute to the development of investment and tourist attractiveness of the Chornobyl zone.
“This is the first such solution in Ukraine, which Vodafone Ukraine develops and implements exclusively for the Chornobyl exclusion zone. In the future, it can be scaled to other fire hazardous areas of Ukraine,” said Andriy Bolshakov, deputy director general of Vodafone Ukraine.
According to Vodafone Ukraine, NB-IoT technology provides a high security standard – encryption and authentication based on a SIM card, which are not available in other technologies. In addition, it optimizes power consumption, extending the battery life of the components up to 10 years. Moreover, the capacity of such a network is significantly higher than that of a voice network.
As reported, high-speed mobile Internet from Vodafone Ukraine appeared in the Chornobyl exclusion zone in 2016 after the launch of the base station of the 3G network in Prypyat. The rollout of the operator’s 4G network began in the Chornobyl exclusion zone in November 2018.
The Irish low-cost airline Ryanair (Dublin) opened ticket sales for the Kyiv-Venice route from March 30, 2021.
The airline’s booking system notes that the flights will be operated by a subsidiary of Malta Air to Treviso airport twice a week on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Departure from Venice is scheduled at 7:15 a.m. with arrival in Kyiv at 10:40 a.m. The return flight from Kyiv is scheduled for 11:15 a.m. with an arrival in Venice at 12:40 p.m..
As reported, in July 2020 Ryanair announced 16 new destinations between Ukraine and Italy as part of the schedule for winter 2020 and summer 2021.
To date, Ryanair’s announced route network from Ukraine to Italy includes 19 routes, including six from Kyiv to Bologna, Catania, Bergamo, Naples, Rome and Venice, with these flights delayed until spring 2021.
