Astarta agricultural holding, the largest sugar producer in Ukraine, in January-March 2019 saw a fall in sugar sales by 42% year-over-year, to 53,960 tonnes, the company has reported on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) on Wednesday.
According to the press release, the sales of wheat for the period fell 78.7%, to 10,750 tonnes, sunflower by 42%, to 11,830 tonnes, and milk by 7%, to 26,020 tonnes.
At the same time, sales of corn increased 3.3-fold, to 304,210 tonnes, barley – from 9 tonnes to 2,410 tonnes, soybean oil – by 13%, to 14,220 tonnes, and soybean meal – by 11%, to 46,870 tonnes.
The company said that at the same time, the average sugar prices for this period decreased 15%, sunflower 10%, soybean oil 16%, while wheat grew by 20%, corn by 23%, barley by 1.8 times, soybean meal by 1%, and milk by 15%.
Astarta is a vertically integrated agricultural holding operating in five regions of Ukraine.
Norway’s NBT and France’s Total Eren have finalized an agreement on the second phase of the project financing of construction of the 250 MW Syvash wind farm (Kherson region) in the amount of EUR 107.6 million, INTEGRITES law firm, which advised the companies, has said in a press release. According to the law firm, this financing agreement was signed with a syndicate of development banks including Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (EUR 30 million), Proparco (ca. EUR 42 million), Finnfund and IFU (EUR 15 million each), and the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO) (EUR 5 million).
All in all, the financing put into place for the whole project reaches EUR 262.6 million. The first phase of financing included a loan of up to EUR 155 million led by EBRD. EBRD’s loan consisted of EUR 75 million, Green for Growth Fund (GGF) and the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) provided EUR 75 million, while a parallel loan of EUR 5 million was provided by the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO).
In addition, AlGihaz, a Saudi Arabian conglomerate, recently took a minority stake in the project alongside Total Eren.
INTEGRITES has advised NBT and Total Eren on all issues within Ukrainian law. In particular, INTEGRITES’ advise included negotiations with the abovementioned international banks, support on the local statutory requirements and communication of project related matters with the National Bank of Ukraine.
“We welcome the closing of the first large-scale project finance in renewable energy In Ukraine. Signing of the second segment with four new international financial institutions and one new co-shareholder on board speaks for the quality of the project and continuing high interest of foreign investors, making a great contribution to increasing of investment into Ukraine,” Managing Partner at INTEGRITES Oleksiy Feliv said.
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
President of the European Council Donald Tusk is waiting for the Ukraine-EU summit in July 2019 and talks about this over telephone with the winner of Ukraine’s presidential elections Volodymyr Zelensky. “First, good phone call with Ukraine’s President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky. I assured him of the EU’s steadfast support to Ukraine. Looking forward to our cooperation and EU-Ukraine Summit in July,” he wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
Tusk also said that he had a telephone conversation with incumbent President Petro Poroshenko, “after 5 years of good cooperation.”
“The competitive, free and fair presidential elections with a peaceful hand over is the best proof of Ukraine’s progress and democracy,” the European Council president noted.
The volume of construction work performed in Ukraine in March 2019 increased by 29.7% compared with March 2018, while the indicator in February 2019 compared with February 2018 grew by 19.4%, according to statistics. According to the data, the volume of construction work performed in March 2019 increased by 3% compared with February 2019.
According to the report, in March 2019 compared with March 2018 the volume of construction work decreased in residential construction – by 14.9%.
Nonresidential construction in March 2019 rose by 47.2% and in engineering – by 54.1%.
In March 2019 compared with February 2019, the volume of residential construction grew by 15%, nonresidential construction by 32.1%, and in engineering it grew by 37.7%.
