The State Agency for Infrastructure Projects jointly with Infrastructure Ministry has presented a plan on reconstruction of municipal enterprise Vinnytsia International Airport for 2019-2020. Head of the State Agency for Infrastructure Projects Mykola Bozhko said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday that it is planned to spend UAH 2.2 billion on the reconstruction project, including UAH 1.013 billion in 2019 for the first phase of the project.
According to him, the airport modernization project was developed as part of the program to modernize regional airports and the public expertise of the project is now being completed, and the reconstruction of the Vinnytsia International Airport will begin soon. “We plan to launch the first flight by the end of this year,” he said.
The first part of the reconstruction project includes: reconstruction of the runway, partial reconstruction of the apron, lighting, radio and meteorological equipment, cable networks and engineering networks of power supply and communications.
“This will allow us to get a modern, highly optimized international complex. The project is divided into two phases, which will allow, after putting into operation the first phase, to receive a fully operational aerodrome complex, which will be able to accept all types of aircraft of class B, C and, in some cases class D (767-200, 767-300),” Bozhko said.
According to him, this will increase the number of passengers served. He also noted the great potential of the Vinnytsia airport for freight shipments.
According to Bozhko, radio equipment and means of radio navigation will be supplied at the expense of Ukraine’s State Air Traffic Services Enterprise (UkSATSE).
KTD Group, which manufactures household appliances in Ukraine under the Saturn, ST and Laretti brands, plans to launch the conveyed assembly of refrigerators at a factory in Cherkasy in one or two months, President of the KTD Group Oleksandr Hromyko has said. “We have already launched the pilot manufacture of refrigerators, and in a month or two we are launching an assembly line for 300,000 refrigerators per year. We buy metal from Metinvest,” Hromyko said at a round table on labor migration issues in Kyiv on Tuesday . As was earlier reported, the initial launch of the plant with a gradual increase in output to 300,000 refrigerators annually was scheduled for the summer of 2017, but the deadline was shifted for 2018. Hromyko explained the time was needed to change the project for the incorporation of energy-saving technologies, as the plant is to manufacture A++ and A+++ energy-saving refrigerators.
Then the launch was rescheduled due to the need to resolve all emerging technical issues, especially considering the complexity of production.
Earlier, Hromyko said that Ukrainian manufacturers could replace Chinese factories for European companies, since locating production facilities in Ukraine reduces delivery periods and avoids duties due to the free trade zone with the EU.
“What we lack and what we saw, for example, in Slovakia or Turkey, is certainly the support of the manufacturer by the government. In Slovakia, for example, if I had opened a similar plant and created 500 jobs, I would have had from 30% to 50% of the cost of equipment compensated,” he said during the round table.
KTD Group has been working in the home appliances market for over 20 years. It is a major supplier of household appliances of various brands in the European market, and produces some of its goods at factories in China, Turkey and Taiwan. According to its website, during this period, offices were opened in 13 countries, namely in the United Arab Emirates and Tunisia.
The Dragon Capital investment company estimated the group’s share in the Ukrainian market of household appliances at 14%.
In 2009, KTD Group opened a Kupava semi-automatic washing machine plant in Kaniv. Then the plant’s assortment was expanded to produce various small appliances under the Saturn trademark. The group’s second plant is located in Cherkasy, where convectors, heaters, electric furnaces are produced.
In Ukraine, the largest producer of refrigerators was the Nord plant in Donetsk, which had to stop in 2016 as it was unable to work in the occupied area in eastern Ukraine, and it started manufacturing refrigerators to China.
Lawyers are waiting for the launch of a short message service (SMS) notification system for summoning parties to court hearings from March 1, provided by the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunications System (UJITS).
Yulia Stusova, a senior lawyer at the Evris law firm, and Andiy Hradov, a junior lawyer at the same firm, told the Kyiv-based Interfax-Ukraine agency that new versions of procedural codes, which entered into force in December 2017, contain, among other things, provisions for changing the procedure for notifying participants in a lawsuit.
The main novelty of the notification system for participants in the judicial process is the gradual introduction of the UJITS, through which participants in the case and the court will be able to carry out electronic exchange of procedural documents. In addition, the court will be able to send parties orders to open proceedings and summon parties to the court session.
The lawyers said in criminal and civil proceedings, alerts to participants about court sessions will be sent via the short message service provided by mobile operators, which was first introduced in 2013. The SMS notification system will be ensured via a fixed message or summons. To use SMS alerts, there should be a written statement from a participant in the case and the court should be technically capable of handling such a notification system.
“In practice, the courts have for a long time informed the participants of the case about the court hearings by e-mail, sending decisions and summons to the addresses indicated in the documents submitted by the parties (statements of claim, comments, etc.) simultaneously with the sending of such documents by means of postal communication. Changes introduced by the new editions of the procedural codes contributed to the relevant practice,” Stusova and Hradov said.
The lawyers said existing procedural codes provide that the statement of claim and the response to the claim must necessarily contain information on the numbers of means of communication, official electronic addresses and email addresses of the parties and other participants in the case. Moreover, if such information is not specified, it becomes the reason for leaving these claims without action.
“Based on our own experience, we can say that receiving email notifications about court hearings is very convenient and saves time, which is usually spent on obtaining relevant information in court, including by telephone,” the lawyers said.
As earlier reported, the UJITS will begin operating on March 1, 2019 and will consist of the following modules: the single contact center of the judicial authority of Ukraine (its toll-free number is 0-800-501-492), a single subsystem for managing financial and business processes, the official electronic address (Electronic Cabinet), the official web portal “Judicial Power of Ukraine” (court.gov.ua), the State Register of Court Decisions, the Electronic Court subsystem, the Automated Distribution, and the Judicial Statistics module.
The UJITS was launched in the trial mode on January 1, 2019.
JSC Ukrzaliznytsia has received the last five locomotive made by General Electric Transportation (the United States), Ukrzaliznytsia Board Chairman Yevhen Kravtsov has said on its Facebook page.
Ukrzaliznytsia received all 30 contracted locomotives GE. The last five met in Chornomorsk on Friday [February 1],” he said.
The received locomotives will be sent to Kriukov Car Building Works (KCBW, Poltava region) for retrofitting, where 10 more U.S. locomotives are already in work.
According to Kravtsov, GE locomotives show themselves to be extremely effective.
“As an example, we save fuel by 30% in the Zaporizhia-Kamysh-Zoria-Volnovakha section. In addition, the locomotives of the old fleet run an average of 360 km per day, and GE diesel locomotives – 540 km,” he said.
According to the head of Ukrzaliznytsia, 15 new locomotives now ensure a quarter of diesel locomotive traction in the three regional branches where they operate: Prydniprovska, Donetsk and Odesa.
Dragon Capital Investments Limited, a member of the Dragon Capital Group, and Dragon Capital New Ukraine Fund L.P. managed by the company led a new investment round and became minority shareholders in Ciklum, a global digital solutions company with major footprint in Ukraine.
According to a press release of Dragon Capital, AVentures Capital participated in the investment round and acquired a minority stake in the company.
The size of minority stakes of all three companies is not disclosed.
“We believe that ongoing global digital transformation will support increasing demand for IT solutions and services, and that Ciklum is very well positioned to capitalize on this sustainable trend. Founded in 2002 and headquartered in London, Ciklum has one of the largest footprints in Ukraine, great expertise and access to IT talent. We are enthusiastic about the opportunity to support one of the leading companies in the segment, which is run by great management and shareholders,” Managing Director, Co-Head of Private Equity at Dragon Capital Andriy Nosok said.
“We are excited to welcome Dragon Capital and Aventures Capital to our shareholder base. This investment will continue to propel Ciklum’s rapid growth in delivering cutting edge technologies to clients around the globe,” Chief Executive Officer of Ciklum Michael Boustridge said.
Dragon Capital group of companies was founded in 2000 and it is one of the largest on the Ukrainian investment market. It works in the field of direct investment and financial services, provides a full range of investment banking and brokerage services for corporate and private clients.
Dragon Capital New Ukraine Fund L.P. was created in November 2015. Dragon Capital manages the funds. Soros Fund Management (SFM) acts as the co-investor in the fund.
Ciklum is a leading global digital services and software engineering company founded in 2002. Ciklum provides services to design and test software, it is involved in innovative research and design, works with Big Data and engineering consulting services.
AVentures Capital was founded in 2012. It invests in IT companies at various stages of their development.
Ribas Hotels Group LLC (Odesa), the managing company of the national chain of three- and four-star hotel and restaurant complexes, has completed the acquisition of a hotel in Bukovel, Ivano-Frankivsk region, and plans to build a new one there by the end of 2019. “In December 2019, the managing company Ribas Hotels Group plans to open a new hotel in Bukovel. The facility is located in Polianytsia (162a Vyshni Street), next to ski lift No. 1,” the company’s press service told Interfax-Ukraine.
The new hotel will be built on the site of the previously acquired hotel facility, which has already been dismantled. The hotel will occupy 3,200 square meters; $4 million will be invested in the project, the company said. “The hotel will offer 45 rooms, and include a spacious restaurant with a terrace, co-working with panoramic mountain views. Before the blueprints were drawn up, we talked to pro skiers and snowboarders, so infrastructure for active tourists takes into account the smallest details… There will also be rooms for guests with disabilities,” General Director of Ribas Hotels Group Artur Lupashko said.
According to him, the swimming pool, Finnish saunas and Roman baths, spa tubs, a massage parlor and a large spa area are almost ready.
As Lupashko earlier said, Ribas Hotels Group in 2019 plans to channel UAH 300 million in investors’ funds into the construction of new hotels. As of February 2019, it manages 25 hospitality facilities.
Ribas Hotels Group LLC (Odesa) was established in 2017.
