National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 20/08/19
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
The non-banking financial institutions of Ukraine in January-June 2019 showed active development dynamics.
Oleksandr Zaletov, a member of the National Commission for the State Regulation of the Financial Services Market, told Interfax-Ukraine that the work of the commission for clearing from unreliable players continued in the first half of 2019, which allowed withdrawing 104 supervised institutions from the market, including 42 financial companies, 37 insurance companies, 16 pawnshops, eight credit unions, six lessors, and one non-state pension fund.
According to him, despite the decrease in the number of financial institutions, the capitalization of the non-banking financial services market has increased significantly, in particular, the assets of financial institutions as of June 30, 2019 exceeded UAH 215 billion, which is 14% or UAH 46.2 billion more than on the same date in 2018. At the same time, the total assets of insurers grew by more than UAH 8 billion, or 14%, in particular those of life insurance companies by UAH 1.5 billion, or 13.6%, risk insurance companies by UAH 6.5 billion, or by 14.1%. The total value of financial companies’ assets rose by UAH 37.8 billion, or 36.6%, credit unions by UAH 65 million, or 2.8%, and pawnshops’ assets by UAH 24 million, or 0.3%.
Zaletov noted the stability of the positive trend in the regional expansion of non-banking financial institutions: in the six months, financial companies registered 653 branches and representative offices, pawnshops some 447, insurance companies some 21, credit unions some 18. This made it possible to ensure not only the availability of non-banking financial services in the regions of Ukraine, but also to create new jobs with tax payments to local budgets.
Skyrizon Aircraft, a Chinese private company, and Xinwei Technology Group listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange under the terms of agreements with Ukroboronprom state concern will provide Ukraine’s aircraft manufacturing industry with grant financing in the amount of $100 million in case of obtaining permission from the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMC) to purchase more than 50% of shares in PJSC Motor Sich (Zaporizhia), an informed source in the government has told Interfax-Ukraine.
“The receipt of these funds in the special fund is already provided for in Paragraph 9 of Article 11 of the law on the national budget of Ukraine for 2019: some UAH 2.8 billion at the exchange rate at the time of adoption of the state budget,” the source said.
He noted that this condition is one of the key in agreements between the Chinese investors and Ukroboronprom approved by the government together with the transfer to the Ukrainian state corporation of a blocking stake in the amount of more than 25% of the shares for the joint management of Motor Sich.
The source noted that this project on the development of aircraft production in Ukraine and the construction of semi knocked-down production in the Chinese city of Chongqing was launched in 2015 on the basis of cooperation agreements between Motor Sich, Skyrizon and Xinwei Group. Within its framework, the Ukrainian company in 2016 received preferential credit financing in the amount of $100 million, and in Chongqing the construction of an assembly plant has now begun.
The basic document for the project is the agreement on cooperation dated April 27, 2018 between Ukraine represented by Ukroboronprom and Skyrizon and Xinwei, which underwent an independent examination of British law by one of the world’s largest law firms, the source said.
Ukraine from April 4 to August 17, 2019 doubled its natural gas reserves in underground gas storage facilities (UGS), to 17.169 billion cubic meters (bcm), according to recent data from JSC Ukrtransgaz.
According to the calculations of the Interfax-Ukraine agency, this volume exceeds the inventory indicator on August 17, 2018 by 24.5%, on August 17, 2017 by 22.2%.
The storage facilities of the country on August 1-17 were replenished by 1.318 billion cubic meters of gas, which is equal to the average daily injection of 77.5 million cubic meters, while in July the figure was 74.4 million cubic meters per day, in June some 71.9 million cubic meters/day, and in May some 62.9 million cubic meters/day.
Underground gas storage facilities in Ukraine, in particular, on August 17 of this year were replenished by 74.36 million cubic meters with imports standing at 66.91 million cubic meters and domestic production of 54.8 million cubic meters.
Earlier, CEO of Naftogaz Ukrainy Andriy Kobolev said that the company intends to pump additional volumes of gas into the Ukrainian underground storage facilities in the event that Russia’s Gazprom ceases gas transit through the country after 2019. Ukraine plans to enter the next heating season with the reserves of about 20 billion cubic meters.
Rubizhne cardboard packaging mill in Luhansk region, one of Ukraine’s largest cardboard packaging producers, produced 144 million square meters of corrugated cardboard boxes in January-July 2019, including goods from its subsidiary, Trypilsky packaging plant in Kyiv region, which was 1.1% down year-over-year.
In the seven months, the two enterprises demonstrated a slight increase in this indicator compared to the previous period of 2018.
The UkrPapir association said that the mills reduced production of components of corrugated cardboard (cardboard and fluting) by 20.5%, to nearly 100,000 tonnes, and cardboard output in general (including other types of this produce) fell by 23.6%, to 129,000 tonnes.
The total commodity amount produced by both enterprises in the period in monetary terms decreased by 15.7%, to UAH 2.669 billion.
According to UkrPapir association, cardboard packaging production in Ukraine in January-July 2019 fell by 2.7%, to 567.2 million square meters.
The Rubizhne cardboard packaging mill has been working on the packaging market since 1991. It produces components for corrugated cardboard (cardboard and fluting) and corrugated cardboard boxes. It also produces cardboard for gypsum boards.
Its most important customers are large confectioneries, juice and tobacco producers.
The Rubizhne cardboard packaging mill acquired Trypilsky packaging plant in 2002 and subsequently began producing corrugated cardboard and corrugated packaging.
In 2018, they produced 257.53 million square meters of corrugated cardboard boxes, which was 13.6% up on 2017.
Ukrenergo National Energy Company will finish construction of the Kreminska substation with a power capacity of 500/220 kV (Kreminna town in Luhansk region) by the end of May 2020, Ukrenergo operations director Volodymyr Kudrytsky said at a press conference in Kyiv.
“Kyiv Energy Construction Company in Ivano-Frankivsk, one of the biggest companies Ukrenergo is working with, won the bids in 2017. At present moment, it is building the facility. May 2020 is an expected date of completion of the building works,” he said.
Kudrytsky reminded that the term for completion of the works was scheduled for December 2018. However, these terms have been shifted over the Cabinet of Ministers’ delay to approve the design documentation and settling the issues with land acquisition. Kyiv Energy Construction Company in order not to waste time started to buy necessary equipment and machinery before the government approved the documentation.
According to company’s operation director, the cost of construction now totals UAH 1.3 billion, while the Cabinet of Ministers initially appraised it at UAH 1.7 billion.
He also reported that Ukrenergo was working over the project on increase of the capacities of Luhansk thermal power plant (TPP).
“To provide distribution of Luhansk TPP in full, at a moment we initiated building of another facility, it is on the stage of design. This is a 220 kV transmission line from Luhansk TPP to Yuvileina power substation,” he said.
As reported, construction of Kreminska substation launched two years ago.
The Kreminska substation will make it possible to synchronize the electricity supply system in the northern Donbas with Ukraine’s Integrated Power System (IPS) and provide a stable link to that system.
Consumers in the northern part of the Luhansk region are only supplied by coal-fired Luhanska TPP. Previously, the fuel was delivered to the station by rail through Russia, but today deliveries have ceased completely being blocked by the Russian Federation.
Now the station runs on gas, which is much more expensive than coal. This is economically disadvantageous. In addition, the station is located in close proximity to the war zone, and its continued operation is constantly under threat. These factors pose significant risks of complete shutdown of the Luhanska TPP. At the same time, due to damage to power grids as a result of hostilities, only two 110 kV transmission lines now connect the Luhanska power unit with the power grid of Ukraine. Their capacity, with no generation at the Luhansk TPP, is only 110MW. Meanwhile, the power unit’s consumption is from 140 MW at night to 220MW in the evening peak. Thus, if the operation of the Luhansk TPP stops in any reasons, the region won’t be provided with electricity as strongly as required.
