The parliamentary committee for agricultural and land policy is finalizing the provisions that foreigners would not be able to buy land until the decision to allow this is made at a national referendum, Deputy Head of the Servant of the People parliamentary faction, MP Yevheniya Kravchuk has said.. “Today, the meeting of our faction was held with one issue on the agenda – the introduction of the land market. Discussions continue. But not about whether it is needed or not, but about the parameters of the functioning of the market. And that means that we have come very close to the optimal solution that will suit Ukraine most of all. Namely, the committee for agricultural and land policy is finalizing the provisions that foreigners will not be able to buy land until a decision on this is made at a national referendum,” Kravchuk wrote on her official page in the Facebook social network on Monday night.
The MP said that this is about the concentration of no more than 10,000-20,000 hectares of land in the hands of one operator.
“As for the concentration of land in the hands of one operator, the threshold will be significantly reduced. Discussion is about 10,000-20,000 hectares, which is 90% less than what was proposed for first reading,” Kravchuk said.
According to Kravchuk, it is necessary to legislatively limit the possibility of speculation with the resale of land.
“We talked about the need to remove speculation with the resale of land in the first years after the market opened. Special safeguards are introduced for this, because people should not earn from selling land, but from products grown on it,” the MP said.
Statistics about passengers carried in Ukraine in Jan-Oct 2019
Ukraine’s transport enterprises in January-October 2019 carried 3.539 billion people, which was 5.6% less than in the same period in 2018, the State Statistics Service has reported. According to the report, passenger turnover for the reporting period totaled 91.4 billion passenger-kilometers, which was 4.1% more than this figure for January-October last year. In the 10 months of 2019, some 130.6 million passengers used rail transport (including the commuter rail service), which was 1.3% less than in January-October 2018, and 1.505 billion passengers were carried by road (5.5% less), the State Statistics Service said.
Airlines increased passenger transportation by 10.3%, to 11.9 million people.
In addition, according to the State Statistics Service, in January-October, 516.3 million passengers used trams (a decrease by 8.2% compared to the same period a year earlier), 591.3 million people used the subway (a 1.6% decline), and 783 million used trolleybuses (a 7.7% decrease).
Passenger transportation by water increased by 4.9% compared to January-October 2018, to 700,000 people.
The State Statistics Service says the report does not include data from the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea, Sevastopol and certain districts in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
On December 17, 2019 the Trade House of Ukraine will be opened in Azerbaijan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during his official visit to Baku.
“I remind you that the Trade House of Azerbaijan has been successfully operating in Kyiv since 2018, and today, the Trade House of Ukraine will open in Azerbaijan,” he said during a joint press statement with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.
The Trading House of Azerbaijan in Ukraine opened in June 2018.
Ukrainian run-of-mine (ROM) coal producers in January-November 2019 reduced production of coal by 6.8% compared to the same period in 2018, to 28.412 million tonnes.
According to the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry, production of coking coal increased by 5.3%, to 5.606 million tonnes, steam coal fell by 9.3%, to 22.807 million tonnes.
At the same time, Krasnolymanske LLC, controlled by Vitaliy Kropachev, continued the practice of hiding data on its activities from the ministry, which began in early September 2018.
According to the ministry, in November 2019 ROM coal production decreased by 1.2% compared to the same month of 2018, to 2.752 million tonnes.
Coal mining enterprises within the control of the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry reduced extraction by 11.7%, to 3.343 million tonnes, in particular production of coking coal increased 56.9%, to 784,300 tonnes, while steam coal fell by 22.2%, to 2.559 million tonnes.
The mines of Donetsk region in January-November 2019 provided the production of 10.144 million tonnes of coal (0.2% less), Luhansk region some 313,100 tonnes (31.6% less), Dnipropetrovsk region some 16.633 million tonnes (9.2% less), Lviv region some 1.257 million tonnes (12.8% less), and Volyn region some 65,900 tonnes (down by 30%).
Sergiy Tigipko’s TAS Group has acquired PrJSC Kyiv-based AB Stolychny asphalt and concrete plant.
Serhiy Samusev withdrew from among the plant’s shareholders by selling his stake consisting of 34,467,029 shares, which is 47.89% of the enterprise’s charter capital, the company said in the National Securities and Stock Market Commission’s information disclosure system.
Luregio Limited (Cyprus) became the new shareholder of AB Stolychny after it had purchased the shares owned by Samusev.
Meanwhile, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU), by a decision of December 13, granted permission to Cyprus T.A.S. Overseas Investments Limited whose main shareholder is Sergiy Tigipko, to purchase shares of Luregio Limited, which will provide an excess of 50% of the vote in the company’s supreme management body.
PrJSC AB Stolychny’s main shareholders as of the third quarter of 2019 were Samusev and Tigipko with shares of 47.9% and 22.6%, respectively, as well as Cyprus-based Forwincom Limited (24.7%). As of the end of 2017, the said stake belonged to Veker Limited. Samusev is listed as the ultimate beneficiary of the company as of December 16, 2019.
As reported, AB Stolychny in 2018 reduced its net profit by 35% from 2017, to UAH 38.6 million. Net income from product sales increased by 21.2%, to UAH 362.9 million. In 2018, AB Stolychny paid UAH 46.8 million in dividends to shareholders.
AB Stolychny was established in 2004 on the basis of a concrete, reinforced concrete, construction materials plant (municipally owned Concrete Products Plant before 1997). It produces asphalt mix for the construction and repair of roads. It also markets reinforced concrete products for underpasses, collectors, and other engineering and road construction facilities.
According to the State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs, AB Stolychny’s charter capital as of December 2019 was UAH 17.99 million.
The TAS Group was founded in 1998. It has assets in the financial and industrial sectors, agriculture, real estate, pharmaceuticals and venture projects. The group’s financial sector includes TAScombank, Universal Bank, VS Bank, two insurance companies, and a number of other organizations. The founder and main shareholder of the group is Tigipko.
