Deputy Head of the parliamentary committee for finances, tax and customs policies (the Servant of the People parliamentary faction) Oleksandr Dubinsky last week registered bills No. 2252 and No. 2253 annulling the military levy.
Darnitsa pharmaceutical company plans to develop in foreign markets, in particular through the acquisition of companies or joint development. This was reported by head of the board of directors of Darnitsa Group Dmytro Shymkiv in Kyiv. He noted that the purchase of foreign companies is one of the “instruments to increase the share of exports.”
According to him, Darnitsa is currently conducting due diligence of several companies, and although Shymkiv did not provide details, he added that the company is studying the issue of acquiring companies not only abroad.
Currently, Darnitsa has about 365 registrations in foreign markets.
“Not all Ukrainian pharmaceutical manufacturers will withstand the requirements for 2D coding of pharmaceutical packaging. In 2020, we will see interesting processes in the Ukrainian market,” he said.
According to him, in 2020 the company plans to invest about EUR4 million in development and research.
As reported, in 2018 Darnitsa invested about EUR3.5 million in development and research, while annually the company invests about 10% of gross income in this direction.
Darnitsa pharmaceutical company is one of the ten largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in Ukraine and the top ten largest hospital suppliers. Its ultimate beneficiary is Hlib Zahoriy.
Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) is ready to purchase medium-haul aircraft of Ukrainian production, provided they are launched into mass production, chairman of the supervisory board and co-owner of UIA Aron Mayberg has said in an interview with Mind.ua.
“UIA is the only airline in Ukraine that is actively and consistently developing domestic flights. It’s another matter that with the abolition of VAT, the company will be able to more actively increase the fleet for domestic flights. The preliminary plans for next year include replenishment of the fleet with at least two Embraer 195s, and if all will turn out favorably this figure may increase to four,” he said.
According to Mayberg, UIA is interested in buying medium-haul aircraft, the cost of transportation in which in terms of one seat will be $30-40. This will make it possible to sell tickets from $20-22 to $70-80 on a flight.
At the same time, he emphasized that mass production is a prerequisite for the purchase of Ukrainian aircraft by airlines.
“It’s not only a matter of cost. Aircraft need to be mass-produced, and not be made in three individual planes, for which it is not clear where to get pilots, spare parts and how to service them. Serial production is not developed in one day. This is a long and complex process. We really need a medium-haul aircraft with a capacity of 70-100 seats. If Ukraine makes such a successful aircraft, we would buy it,” Mayberg said.
Iron ore mines run by Ukraine’s Metinvest raised output in January-September 2019. An industry source told Interfax that Northern Mining (Pivnichny GOK) produced 6.542 million tonnes of merchant iron ore pellets in the 9M, up 1% year-on-year, including 422,000 tonnes in September; and 9.147 million tonnes of iron or concentrate, up 13.4%, including 923,000 tonnes in September.
Central Mining (Central GOK) raised merchant pellet output 0.1% in 9M 2019 to 1.779 million tonnes and concentrate 1.8% to 3.259 million tonnes, including respectively 209,000 tonnes and 390,000 tonnes in September.
Inhulets Mining (INGOK) reduced concentrate output 0.9% in 9M to 8.351 million tonnes, including 918,000 tonnes in September.
The vertically integrated Metinvest’s main shareholders are System Capital Management (SCM, 71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%).
Milk production in Ukraine in January-September 2019 decreased by 3.5% compared to the same period in 2018, to 7.61 million tonnes.
According to the State Statistics Service, in January-September 2019, farmers produced 2.42 million tonnes of meat (live weight), which is 6.4% more than in the same period of 2018.
Egg production grew by 4.3%, to 13.02 billion units.
The World Bank, taking into account the results of H1 2019, has improved its forecast for gross domestic product (GDP) growth in Ukraine in 2019 from 2.7% to 3.4%, expecting that it would accelerate to 3.7% and 4.2% in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
“If the new government is able to deliver on its ambitious reform goals, growth can increase to 4% by 2021,” the World Bank said in its October report entitled “Migration and Brain Drain.”
The analysts said that this will require progress in the following areas: reviving sound bank lending to the enterprise sector by completing the reform of state-owned banks; attracting private investment into tradable sectors by establishing a transparent market for agricultural land, demonopolizing key sectors and strengthening antimonopoly policy and enforcement, privatizing state-owned enterprises, and tackling corruption; and safeguarding macroeconomic stability by addressing current expenditure pressures, securing adequate financing, further reducing inflation, and rebuilding international reserves.
If reforms do not progress and adequate financing is not mobilized, growth could fall below 2% as investor confidence deteriorates, macroeconomic vulnerabilities intensity, and financing difficulties force a compression in domestic demand. Ukraine will need to safeguard macroeconomic stability and manage fiscal risks.
According to the expectations of the World Bank, in 2019, the deficit of the national budget o Ukraine would be 2.2% of GDP. The figure would decrease to 2.1% of GDP in 2020 and to 1.9% of GDP in 2021.
According to the World Bank’s forecast, the public debt will also continue to decline this year to 53% of GDP, but will grow in 2020 and in 2021 to 54.6% of GDP and to 55.3% of GDP, respectively.
As indicated in the materials, the current account deficit will continue to grow: in 2019 – to 3.5% of GDP, in 2020 – to 3.8% of GDP and in 2021 – to 4.3% of GDP.
At the same time, the bank expects a slow increase in net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in 2019 and 2020 to 2.2% of GDP and 2.3% of GDP, respectively.
At the same time, inflation will take a downward trend: from 9.5% at the end of last year to 6.8% this year, as well as 6% and 5.4% in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
According to the report of the World Bank’s experts, the main risk for the Ukrainian economy is formidable financing needs. So, according to the analysts, it will take about $11 billion per year, or 8% of GDP, to pay off government debt and finance the budget deficit in the current and next two years.
“To raise the necessary financing, it is critical to maintain the reform momentum and fiscal discipline, while continuing cooperation with development partners,” the bank said in the report.
