The European Business Association (EBA) has addressed Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal with a request to resume the work of the system of state registration of pesticides and agrochemicals, which was suspended in late May 2020, according to a statement posted on the association’s website on Tuesday.
According to the member companies of the EBA Agrochemical Committee, the problems have become relevant since the renaming of the Ministry of Energy and Environmental Protection of Ukraine and the establishment of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources.
“At the end of May, the Scientific Expert Council at the Ministry recommended 100 chemical products as a result of the meeting. However, as of today, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources has not yet made a decision on their registration. Therefore, the abovementioned chemical products are not included in the State Register of pesticides and agrochemicals approved for use in Ukraine,” the EBA said.
The association also noted that if chemicals are not included in the State Register, Ukrainian and international importers and manufacturers of plant protection products will not be able to provide farmers timely with a significant number of next-generation products.
“Due to this situation, legal businesses suffer losses as they fail to sell their products. As the result, the state budget lacks revenues from taxes and customs duties estimated at millions of hryvnias,” the association said.
In addition, the EBA noted that the use period of PPPs is quite short. Accordingly, the farmer will buy what is available on the market.
“Due to the lack of high-quality registered PPPs, there is a risk of a significant increase in demand for gray imports and counterfeit products. Thus, the quality and security of the future harvest, and, consequently, the export potential and currency stability of the country may be threatened,” it said.
Therefore, the business community appealed to the prime minister to pay attention to this situation and adjust the work of relevant departments, offices, and divisions of the Ministry of Environmental Protection so that to restore the system of state registration of pesticides and agrochemicals and, in general, to ensure quality conditions for doing business in the country, which is one of the tasks of the reorganized ministry.
National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 28/07/20
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
Official rates of banking metals from national bank as of July 28
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
Cheap loans and mortgage should be based on economic stability, otherwise it is impossible to regulate such programs manually, General Manager of Alfa-Bank Rafal Juszczak has said.
“The idea of making [banks] to open deposits at 5% will reduce the interest rate to 10% indeed. But where is confidence here? The bank is confidence. The economy is stability, predictability. Would you deposit your private money at 5% under a threat of devaluation? Such actions will provoke a response – we won’t see deposit inflows,” the banker said in an exclusive interview to Interfax-Ukraine.
Juszczak also spoke in favor of a free market as long as market mechanisms operate there and it is impossible to force people to do anything.
“I would focus on economic stability. Hence, the interest rates will gradually decrease,” he said.
Alfa-Bank’s general manager also noted that a slowdown in rates could promote changes in banks as their interest income would decrease.
He also said that Alfa-Bank’s interest rates remain at the market level, although they may keep decreasing.
“I don’t rule out that against the background of such a positive dynamics in interest rates we will be able to offer a new product with a very attractive rate so as to get an additional market share due to the price,” Juszczak said.
At the same time, the banker mentioned that the future of the crisis is still not clear.”I agree with out macroeconomist Oleksiy Blinov: he is not as pessimistic as other analysts. Today many of them say that Ukraine, thanks to the specifics of its economy, will get even stronger after this crisis than many other countries,” he said.
As of June 1, 2020, Alfa-Bank ranked sixth among 75 banks operating in the country in terms of total assets (UAH 94.113 billion).
Тhe Ministry of Health of Ukraine intends to fully implement 2D coding [special labeling of packages to prevent counterfeiting] of medicines in Ukraine in two and a half years, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said during a press briefing in Kyiv on Friday.
“Yesterday, I had a meeting with representatives of leading pharmaceutical companies in Ukraine. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss an action plan in the ministry regarding the pharmaceutical market. The first thing we voiced was the introduction of 2D-coding of all the medicines that are used in Ukraine. When this is implemented, the number of counterfeit medicines in pharmacies will be reduced to almost zero. We believe that in two-two and a half years we will be able to completely switch to 2D coding. We will move gradually: first, we will transfer to 2D coding all medicines according to the reimbursement program, and only after that all import goods,” he said.
According to the minister, it is also planned to completely switch to electronic prescriptions.
“E-prescription is now used in the Affordable Medicines program. We believe that the electronic prescription should be expanded as much as possible in our country, including gradually getting rid of paper prescriptions so that medicines are dispensed exclusively on prescriptions that can be controlled. It also has an economic effect, in this case we envisage a reduction in the prices of medicines. The e-prescription contains the active ingredient, and in the pharmacy you can choose a drug for a suitable price,” Stepanov said.
19% of Ukrainians believe that in general, things in Ukraine are going in the right direction, and 68% have the opposite opinion, according to the results of a survey conducted by Rating Sociological Group on July 15-20, 2020.
More than 60% of respondents believe that the economic situation in Ukraine has deteriorated over the past six months, a quarter believe that it has not changed, and only 8% of respondents noted an improvement.
At the same time, sentiments about the future are more optimistic: 17% believe that the economic situation in Ukraine will improve in the next six months, 35% believe that it will not change, and 40% expect it to worsen. However, in the long-term dynamics, the percentage of those who expect improvement decreases, along with this, the feeling of hope (26%) among the population slightly decreases, and disappointment remains the emotion that is experienced the most (43%).
Some 57% of respondents see the reason for possible economic crisis in the incompetence of the authorities, although 26% believe that the economic decline will come due to the coronavirus pandemic, and 8% believe that the war in Donbas will be the cause of decline. In the course of the survey, which took place in June, a month earlier, such answers were given by 53%, 32% and 6% of respondents, respectively.
In the course of the study, 2000 respondents aged 18 and over were interviewed by the method of personal formalized interview (face-to-face) in all regions, except for Russia-occupied Crimea and Donbas. The sample is representative by age, sex and type of locality. The margin of error does not exceed 2.2%.
