Prime Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Honcharuk states that the government does not intend to raise taxes.
“We as a government do not plan to raise taxes, this is the wrong way. The state should not increase the amount of resources that it passes through itself,” Honcharuk said on the air of ICTV Channel on Monday evening.
According to him, the state should create incentives so that people are not afraid to invest in their business, and then develop it.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine intends in the next five years to increase the share of low cost air routes from Ukraine from 38% to 63%.
Such plans are contained in the government’s program (draft resolution No. 2186), posted on the parliament’s website.
According to the text of the program, for the specified period, the government intends to create conditions for a 60% increase in passenger traffic from Ukrainian airports from 20 million to 32 million people a year, as well as for increasing freight traffic from airports by 20%, from 94,000 tonnes to 112,000 tonnes per year.
In addition, the Cabinet also plans to stimulate the formation of an approximate average ticket price to the level of the average European indicator and increase the air mobility of the population by 10%, from 5% to 15%.
As reported, in January-August 2019 Ukrainian airlines transported about 9.226 million passengers, which is 10.7% more compared to the same period in 2018.
Kernel Holding S.A. (Luxembourg), the holding company of Ukraine’s Kernel agricultural and industrial group, plans to place $300-350 million eurobonds (loan participation notes, LPN), a source in banking circles has told Interfax-Ukraine.
The company intends to hold a conference call with investors on October 1, and meetings in London and New York on October 2. The organizers of the transaction are JP Morgan and ING.
Kernel plans to place either eurobonds with a maturity of five years and a call option after three years, or seven-year eurobonds with a call option after four years.
Kernel is the world’s largest producer and exporter of sunflower oil, the leading producer and supplier of agricultural goods from the Black Sea region to the world markets.
A bill which legalizes gambling in Ukraine was approved by the national government on September 29, according to a statement posted on the government’s website.
According to the bill, “gambling will be allowed exclusively on hotel premises through use of gambling equipment and software that comply with international standards.”
Seeking “de-criminalization of the economy,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tasked the government and the parliamentary majority with elaborating and adopting before December 1, 2019, laws legitimizing the gambling industry and amber production.
The Cabinet of Ministers at a meeting on September 29 approved a bill banning exports of raw amber, which foresees focusing of legal production on existing mining sites, Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk has said.
“The main idea is to simultaneously comprehensively criminalize the illegal export of amber from Ukraine,” Honcharuk said at a press briefing on Monday.
The bill provides for a ban on the export of unprocessed amber (raw), criminalizes the illegal export of amber, and simplifies the procedure for obtaining official documents for the development of existing prospecting mining sites for legal business.
The bill will be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada in the near future, Honcharuk said.
In addition, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a bill on the legalization of gambling and will soon introduce it to the Rada.
“We want the slot machines to disappear from the streets… Yesterday we voted in favor of it. And in the near future it will be submitted to parliament,” Honcharuk said.
Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) stopped direct regular flights between Kyiv and Almaty (Kazakhstan) on October 27, 2019, the airline’s press service has said.
“The decision to stop flights was made in connection with the unprofitability of the flight, caused by the need to bypass the territory of the Russian Federation. The ban on using the airspace of the Russian Federation for Ukrainian carriers led to a significant increase in the duration of the Kyiv-Almaty flight from five hours 20 minutes to six hours 35 minutes and, accordingly, additional costs, which it is not possible to cover even taking into account the effect of transit traffic,” the airline said.
At the same time, UIA maintains a code sharing agreement with Air Astana on routes to Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana) and Almaty. However, the company emphasizes that the schedule of code sharing flights between Kyiv and Almaty will allow retaining only part of transit capabilities, and the closure of its own flight violates the airline’s hub model and is a necessary measure designed to return the company to profitability.
“The decision is necessary and logical. It is connected with the difficulties in implementing the hub model that have been repeatedly voiced earlier. Losses exceeding $7 million do not allow us to continue operating a loss-making flight,” UIA President Yevhen Dykhne said.
In 2013-2019 UIA performed 2,120 flights on the Kyiv-Almaty-Kyiv route, carried 528,500 passengers and delivered 3,600 tonnes of cargo and mail, and also provided an additional transit flow of 380,000 passengers to Boryspil International Airport.
