Ukraine and ten other countries have joined the EU sanctions against the terrorist organizations ISIS and Al-Qaeda, as well as individuals, groups, enterprises and organizations associated with them, the European Council said.
“The Candidate Countries the Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania2, the country of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidate Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the EFTA countries Iceland and Liechtenstein, members of the European Economic Area, as well as Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Armenia and Georgia align themselves with this Council Decision,” the European Council said on its website on Thursday.
It is noted that these countries will ensure that their national policies conform to these Council Decisions.
“The European Union takes note of this commitment and welcomes it,” the message reads.
On 19 October 2020, the Council adopted Decision (CFSP) 2020/15161. The Council Decision extends the existing restrictive measures until 31 October 2021.
National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 27/11/20
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
Official rates of banking metals from national bank as of November 27
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has reduced the deficit in the draft national budget for 2021 from 6% to 5.5% of GDP, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has said.
“An opportunity has been found to reduce the budget deficit to GDP from 6%, as proposed at first reading, to 5.5%,” he said at an extraordinary government meeting on Thursday.
Thus, the deficit was reduced by UAH 24 billion, to UAH 246.35 billion.
In the initial draft, state budget revenues were determined at the level of UAH 1.071 trillion, expenses – UAH 1.331 trillion. The new wording of the bill provides for UAH 1.092 trillion in revenues and UAH 1.328 trillion in expenses.
As reported, the state budget for 2020 provides for a deficit of 7.5% of GDP.
Ukraine must carefully prepare a vaccination campaign against COVID-19, otherwise the vaccination mechanism will not stop the epidemic, said head of the KSE Center for Health Economics, ex-Deputy Minister of Health Pavlo Kovtoniuk.
“We believe that without an emergency and massive vaccination campaign, Ukraine will not be able to use the tool [vaccination] in such a way that it somehow has at least a little impact on the distribution pattern,” he said during the weekly online presentation of KSE on Thursday.
Kovtoniuk noted that according to the calculations of the KSE, even in the “ideal world” Ukraine will not be able to vaccinate risk groups. In particular, if you vaccinate the greatest risk group – people over 55 years old, who, according to statistics, most often get sick with COVID-19, it will be necessary to vaccinate 13.5 million people in Ukraine.
According to KSE calculations, for such a vaccination “in an ideal world, when everyone has the vaccine and everyone came to the vaccination rooms at the same time, and all 6,580 vaccination rooms will work eight hours without breaks and weekends, and all these people will receive two doses of the vaccine,” six months will be needed.
“Even in ideal conditions, when everything comes along, we will be able to vaccinate the category of older people in only six months. But we understand that people do not come to vaccination rooms in an organized manner, that vaccines will not be delivered in proportional way, that some of the vaccines will come on the initiative of COVAX, and some will have to be bought, and they will be delivered at different times. There will be many more factors that will slow down this process. And only 36% of the population will be able to get vaccinated. We are not talking about herd immunity,” said Kovtoniuk.
“If we simply give people the opportunity to vaccinate at will, the process will drag on for years and even then the main risk groups will not be vaccinated. And in fact we do not use this tool,” he stressed.
Kovtoniuk believes it is most likely that “we will live in one mode or another with COVID-19 throughout 2021.”
“Vaccination will be one of the ways to combat COVID-19, but it will not be a miracle weapon that will destroy COVID-19. Other methods of struggle will continue to work: this is a powerful testing system that needs to be built, it is also powerful, I would say the aggressive contact tracing system that needs to be built is quarantine restrictions, which will still be present,” he said.
Creditwest Bank (Kyiv) and the Export Credit Agency (ECA) have signed a cooperation agreement to stimulate the export of Ukrainian-made goods, the bank’s press service said on Wednesday.
According to the report, the agreement provides for Creditwest Bank’s participation in ECA’s Export Risks Insurance program, within which the agency undertakes insurance of risks under export contracts financed by the bank.
Through the appropriate program Ukrainian companies will be able to attract loans for the implementation of export contracts.
The bank said that the largest loan amount under the program is UAH 2.5 million. The loan term is up to one year. The amount of insurance compensation is set at 85% of the loan amount.
According to the report, the corresponding agreement provides for the use of accelerated procedures for considering applications from the bank by the Export Credit Agency.
The approximate ECA insurance rate will be 1.2% of the loan amount for loans for a period of up to six months, 1.6% – for a period of six to 12 months, depending on the coefficient of the buying country on the OECD scale.
CREDITWEST BANK, EXPORT, EXPORT CREDIT AGENCY, STIMULATE, UKRAINIAN GOODS
