Ukraine’s customs in January-July 2018 opened seven cases for violating customs rules on importing and exporting goods included in the customs register of intellectual property rights for UAH 1.4 million, Ukraine’s State Fiscal Service (SFS) said on Monday. Since the start of the year, customs officials have 4,200 times halted customs clearance because of possible violations of intellectual property rights, the SFS said. “In general, the situation as of August 1, 2018, is as follows: the legal owners of intellectual property rights entered 3,818 items into the customs registry. Of them, 206 have been entered since the start of 2018.
The registry lists items of ownership of intellectual property and associated rights, inventions, useful models, industrial samples, trademarks, geographical designators (indices of origin of goods) and plant varieties, the service said.
One case was brought against a Ukrainian entity that tried to import from China 4,400 pairs of sneakers with markings similar to the ADIDAS, NIKE, PUMA logos. The court confirmed that the goods were imported in violation of intellectual property rights. Goods worth more than UAH 1 million were confiscated seized and a UAH 17,000 fine was imposed.
“In a second case, a Ukrainian private enterprise attempted to import 417 headphones from China with unauthorized use of the image and the APPLE logo, which is included in the register of objects of intellectual property rights,” the agency said.
Under a court decision, goods worth UAH 104,200 were confiscated and the court also imposed a UAH 17,000 fine on the offender, the SFS said.
Mriya Agro Holding has launched its first crop protection chemical mix station in Khorostkiv, Ternopil region, to the tune of UAH 1.8 million. “We’ve launched a station to mix crop protection products in Khorostkiv to reduce the use of chemicals to a minimum and increase the speed of their application. The payback of the station in keeping with our estimates will be 12 months. Initially, the cost of the station was estimated at UAH 2.5 million, but we managed to reduce to UAH 1.8 million thanks to its re-equipment and refinement. We plan to launch 15 more such stations at all clusters of the agricultural holding,” head of Mriya Agro Holding’s agronomic department Oleksandr Khmeliuk said at a press conference.
According to him, the holding plans to approve a strategy in November 2018 for the construction of mix stations with a model design of the station, which will be used by all clusters of Mriya.
“Then it will be possible to evaluate the needed investments and the timing of the construction of stations for mixing crop protection products,” Khmeliuk said.
Mriya Agro Holding is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding founded in 1992 by Ivan Huta. Today, its land bank is 165,000 hectares. The capacity of its silos and grain storages is estimated at 380,000 tonnes.
The State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine and the Ministry of Energy and Industry of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have signed a memorandum of understanding on energy efficiency and renewable energy. “By cooperating, we will exchange experience and promote the implementation of joint investment projects in the field of energy efficiency, clean energy and garbage processing,” the press service of the Ukrainian agency on Saturday quoted its head, Serhiy Savchuk, as saying.
The State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine says that the UAE is one of the most developed countries of the Persian Gulf, which has set the task to achieve at least 44% of “clean” energy in the country’s overall energy balance by 2050.
In addition, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) whose charter Ukraine has joined is located in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE. What is more, the world’s largest solar park is being built near Dubai. Its projected capacity by 2020 is 1 GW, and 5 GW by 2050.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY, INVESTMENT PROJECTS, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
The Swedish owner of the clothing chain Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) will open a second store in Ukraine in October, H&M’s Ukraine Country Manager Dominique Fantaccino has said. “The first store with an area of 3,000 square meters will be opened tomorrow August 18 at Lavina Mall, and the second one at Sky Mall in October. We are sure that Ukraine is a large market and we will explore other locations in Kyiv and other big cities,” she said at a meeting with the press on Friday.
According to H&M CEO Fredrik Olsson, the company is also considering opening street retail outlets in Ukraine.
Major pipe enterprises of Ukraine in January-July 2018 increased production of pipes from ferrous metals by 8.2% compared to the same period in 2017, to 646,600 tonnes, including 104,000 tonnes in July. The Ukrtruboprom association told Interfax-Ukraine that the enterprises incorporated in the association for the seven months of the year increased the production of pipes by 19.9%, to 477,500 tonnes, including 72,900 tonnes in July.