In its August report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) slightly lowered its forecast for the corn crop in Ukraine. The decrease compared to July is 1.8%, namely to 27.2 million tons (-0.5 million tons), exports – 24 million tons (-0.5 million tons), ending stocks increased to 0.73 million tons (+0.5 million tons).
World corn production is reduced to 1.219 billion tons (-0.005 billion tons), exports – to 191.47 million tons (-0.34 million tons), carry-over stocks – 310.17 million tons (-1.47 million tons).
Analysts have lowered their estimates of global corn production due to extreme heat and drought in southeastern Europe and the Southern and North Caucasus regions of Russia in July, which affected crop yields. Corn production in Ukraine was reduced, as the expansion of corn production areas was offset by lower yield expectations.
2022-2024 goods trade balance forecast (USD bln)
Source: Open4Business.com.ua
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in its August report raised its wheat harvest forecast for Ukraine in the 2024/2025 marketing year (MY, July 2024/June 2025) by 10.8% to 21.6 million tons, and exports by 7.7% to 14 million tons
Analysts also revised upward the domestic consumption of wheat in Ukraine by 10.5% to 7.4 million tons. Ukraine will enter the season with starting residues of 770,000 tons, while a month earlier they amounted to 1.08 million tons. USDA expects that by the end of 2024/2025 MY the country will have 1.05 mln tons of wheat, which is 9.4% higher than the July forecast.
At the same time, USDA forecasts world wheat production for the 2024/2025 season at 798.28 (+ 2.18 million tons from last forecast) and world exports at 214.86 million tons (+ 1.98 million tons). The experts lowered the forecast of wheat ending stocks in the world to 256.62 million tons (- 1.97 million tons).
The Asian Development Bank has approved two loans to Uzbekistan totaling $400 million to implement large-scale reforms in the energy sector aimed at improving its efficiency and competitiveness, as well as developing the country’s financial markets.
ADB’s Director General for Central and West Asia, Evgeny Zhukov, said that the reforms supported by these programs will help create an enabling environment for regulators and companies to play their part in stimulating development by creating reliable domestic financial markets and meeting energy needs while fighting climate change.
ADB will provide $300 million to reform Uzbekistan’s energy sector, including creating a more effective governance structure, improving legislation, and attracting private investment.
To develop Uzbekistan’s financial market, ADB will provide $100 million to implement regulatory and institutional reforms aimed at improving market conditions to optimize financial transactions and services, and to increase supply and demand side measures to grow capital markets.
Uzbekistan joined ADB in 1995, and since then, the bank has provided $12.5 billion in loans, grants, and technical assistance to the country.
In January-July this year, Ukrainian enterprises increased their consumption of rolled metal products by 1.67% year-on-year to 2 million 34.6 thousand tons.
According to a press release issued by Ukrmetallurgprom on Monday, 711.6 thousand tons, or 34.97% of the domestic rolled metal consumption market, were imported during this period.
According to Ukrmetallurgprom, in January-July 2024, steel companies produced 3.728 million tons of rolled metal products (128.4% compared to the same period in 2023), of which, according to the State Customs Service of Ukraine, about 2.405 million tons, or 64.5%, were exported. In January-July 2023, the share of exports amounted to 51.3% (1.490 million tons against a total production of 2.903 million tons of rolled steel).
The share of semi-finished products in export deliveries in January-July 2024 amounted to 46.90%, which is the same as in January-July 2023 (46.11%). The share of flat products in export deliveries in seven months of 2014 is significantly higher than in January-July 2023 (39.83% and 34.77%, respectively). The share of long products is significantly lower than in January-July 2023 (13.26% in 2024 vs. 19.13% in 2023).
“In 7 months of 2024, the domestic market capacity amounted to 2034.6 thousand tons of rolled steel, of which 711.6 thousand tons or 34.97% were imported. In January-July 2023, the domestic market capacity was 2001.2 thousand tons, of which 588.2 thousand tons or 29.39% were imported. Thus, for 7 months of 2024, there is an increase in the domestic market capacity by 1.67% compared to 7 months of 2023, with a simultaneous increase in the share of the import component by 5.58%,” the press release states.
The structure of imports in January-July 2024 is still characterized by a significant dominance of flat products over long products (79.38% and 19.04%, respectively); in January-July 2023, the dominance of flat products over long products was also significant (78.83% and 20.13%, respectively).
According to the State Customs Service, the main export markets for Ukrainian rolled steel products in January-July 2024 were the European Union (74.3%), Africa (8.8%) and the rest of Europe (7.6%). Among metallurgical importers in the first seven months of 2024, the first place was taken by other European countries (47.1%), the second by the EU-27 (29.8%), and the third by Asian countries (21.2%).
As reported, Ukraine’s rolled metal market grew 2.19 times in 2023 compared to 2022, to 3 million 505.6 thousand tons.
The company imported 1 million 118.6 thousand tons, or 31.91% of the domestic rolled metal consumption market.
The network of laboratories “Eskulab” plans to resume work in Kyiv and Kyiv region in the coming days after the attempted raider seizure, and to expand the network in the region to more than 100 collection points by the end of the year.
“We currently have 32 collection points in Kyiv and the region, and we plan to open another 70 by the end of the year. We will definitely return to work next week, we will stabilize the situation and start collecting biomaterial from our patients in the near future,” said Svitlana Zinchenko, the network’s chief operating officer, at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Monday.
For his part, Andriy Zborivsky, head of Eskulab’s legal department, said that during the attempts to illegally take over the company by its co-founders Stanislav Lugovskyi and Denys Melnyk, “massive and systematic violations of cash discipline and tax evasion are taking place at the biomaterial collection points.”
“We appealed to the tax authorities, and they conducted inspections based on our requests, and three violations of cash discipline were identified in two days of such inspections. The facts of the violations are being recorded and forwarded to law enforcement agencies. The perpetrators will be held accountable, including criminal liability,” he said.
He also said that the activities of Eskulab are being blocked by MZ Group, which provided IT services to Eskulab.
“MZ Group has blocked the accounts of all employees of Eskulab-Center. As a result of such actions, it became impossible to perform laboratory tests of biomaterial that was taken from thousands of patients,” he said.
Zborivsky noted that “there are facts of blocking biomaterial in the Lviv and Kyiv laboratories of the network,” and the heads of the Kyiv and Lviv laboratories concealed patients’ biomaterial.
“These illegal actions threatened the health and lives of patients, as many patients demanded immediate results. Including while in hospitals. These facts were reported to law enforcement agencies and criminal investigations were opened,” he said.
“The management of the Eskulab laboratory in the Kyiv region is taking all necessary actions to eliminate the negative consequences of such illegal actions, to resume the company’s activities and to perform laboratory tests,” he said.
Zborivsky emphasized that “the laboratory is taking all possible actions to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
In turn, Yuliana Dutko, Head of Business Intelligence at Eskulab, said that from July 19 to July 25, the laboratory’s information system was interfered with and blocked, “first of all, the accounts of Director Serhiy Dyadyushko, COO Svitlana Zinchenko, collection point employees and office staff were blocked.”
In addition, according to Dutko, “the partners reached the peak of their immorality and manually deleted registered orders.”
“We have confirmation that all these actions were carried out by employees of Igor Malinowski’s MZ Group,” she said.
Dutko also said that the employees of the collection points were instructed by Stanislav Lugovskyi not to pay for the tests through the system, thus avoiding taxation. At the same time, a backup data storage was used to carry out this manipulation.
“In particular, we recorded in one of the points that the total payment for the tests amounted to more than UAH 10 thousand, while taxes were paid from UAH 210,” she said.
For his part, Serhiy Dyadyushko, director of Eskulab Center, noted that the raiders’ actions “caused the laboratory huge reputational damage, which is difficult to assess.”
“This is not just a corporate conflict. It is about the fact that patients were involved in this conflict, and this endangers their lives and health. Patients are postponing surgeries and visits to doctors because of the artificially created situation, while Luhovskyi and Melnyk are withdrawing millions of hryvnias from Eskulab in Lviv,” Dyadyushko emphasized.
As reported, at the end of July, the network of laboratories “Aesculab” suspended its activities in Kyiv due to a conflict that arose between the owner of the network, Serhiy Dyadyushko, and its co-founders, Stanislav Luhovskyi and Denys Melnyk. Ihor Malynovskyi, Luhovskyi’s cousin, acted as the administrator of the lab’s software.
The conflict between the co-founders of the Eskulab network arose in 2023, when Luhovskyi and Melnyk tried to re-register Diadiushko’s share and exclude him from the network.
Eskulab Medical Laboratory is one of the three largest private laboratories in Ukraine, contracted by the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU). The network consists of five laboratory centers and 180 sample collection points in the western regions of Ukraine and Kyiv.
In 2023, Eskulab paid UAH 33.8 million in taxes, including UAH 14.97 million in unified social tax, UAH 1.33 million in military duty, and UAH 14.034 million in personal income tax. It is one of the ten largest taxpayers in Lviv region.
The co-founders of PE “PSML “Eskulab” are Dyadyushko, who owns 43% of the company, Luhovskyi (43%) and Melnyk (14%). The co-founders of Eskulab Center LLC are Dyadyushko, Luhovskyi and Melnyk, who each own 20% of the company, and Ruslana Soltani, who owns 40%.
Diadiushko, Hnatysh, Petrovsky, Zborivsky, Дутко, Ескулаб, Зинченко
