The single counterparty exposure limit (H7, should be no more than 25%) as of February 1 was violated by Prominvestbank (65.76%), Industrialbank (50.9%) and Sberbank (52.37%), according to the website of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
According to the regulator, the related party transactions exposure limit (H9, should not exceed 25%) was violated by Megabank (28.43%), First Investment Bank (51.46%) and Unex Bank (28.71%).
The limit on bank total long open FX position (L13-1, should be no more than 10%) was violated by Prominvestbank (93.24%), Oschadbank (127.7%), PrivatBank (103.67%) and Industrialbank (10.6%).
The limit on bank total short open FX position (L13-2, should be no more than 10%) was violated by Prominvestbank (93.28%).
The Verkhovna Rada adopted at the second reading law on the unification of the rates of customs duties for light industry goods (bill No. 4410).
As a correspondent of Interfax-Ukraine reports, 307 MPs voted for the bill at the second reading, with the required 226 votes.
According to the explanatory note to the bill, the unification of duty rates will speed up the customs clearance of such goods. The bill provides for the establishment of equal preferential rates of import duty on homogeneous goods of the light industry by reducing (by 255 subcategories) or increasing (by 25 categories) the current rates.
The bill, in particular, establishes preferential rates of customs duty: 0% – for raw materials that are not produced in Ukraine (yarn, fibers, threads 50-53 group of the Ukrainian Classifier of Goods for Foreign Economic Activity), as well as for artificial fibers of commodity items 5505, 506 and 5507.
In addition, a preferential rate is set from 1% to 8% for finished products – fabrics, felt, wicker nets, twine and ropes. At the same time, the bill retains the current preferential rates of 5% for mixed cotton fabrics (code 5211).
As for the increase in the rate of duties, they are increased to 10% for light industry goods in those subcategories where such rates are below 10% (some 105 commodity subcategories).
As stated on the website of the Ministry of Finance on Friday, this bill was drafted in cooperation with the Ukrainian Association of enterprises of textile and leather industry.
The Ministry of Finance said that the provisions of the bill do not apply to goods originating from countries with which Free Trade Agreements had been concluded.
Earlier, owner of the Textile-Contact Group, member of the Presidium of the Council of the Federation of Employers of Ukraine Oleksandr Sokolovsky spoke in support of the adoption of this bill.
“Today, the average rate of customs duties on fabric is from 0% to 5%, some up to 8%, while the nomenclature of groups 50-59 of the Ukrainian Classifier of Goods for Foreign Economic Activity includes more than 1,500 items of commodity subcategories, which even a specialist cannot visually distinguish without a laboratory. And laboratories are overloaded and examine the fabric for up to two or three months, and the production technologies go ahead and it is often problematic for them to deal with the codes,” he said.
According to him, the unification of rates will make it possible to simplify the work of inspectors, reduce the costs of importers of raw materials, and also create clear rules of the game for business.
Minister of Health of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov has left from Boryspil Airport to India to conduct direct negotiations with manufacturers on additional volumes of Oxford/AstraZeneca and NovaVax vaccines in 2021-2022.
“Kyiv-Dubai-Delhi-Pune. I will be at my destination place in Pune in 17 hours. We are preparing for negotiations with the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world – Serum Institute of India,” Stepanov wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday evening.
According to him, the pandemic will be a global problem for the next several years.
“We understand that it is necessary to contract additional volumes now,” the minister said.
“The main task is to reach the already contracted 12 million doses, to reach direct agreements for the supply of additional volumes of Oxford/AstraZeneca and NovaVax vaccines in 2021-2022 directly with the manufacturer,” Stepanov emphasized.
He also noted that he will personally control the dispatch of the first batch. “The importance of the cargo obliges,” the head of the department added.
Auchan Retail Ukraine expects to reclaim ownership of the land plot in Odesa, however, in the event of a negative result in the Ukrainian courts, the company will consider applying to international arbitration, since the price set by the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) for this site is not fair and market-oriented, Head of Legal and Compliance of Auchan Retail Ukraine Ruslan Dubas told Interfax-Ukraine.
“On February 16, the first session of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court took place. We hope that the court will ultimately uphold the decision of the Pivnichny [Northern] Economic Court of Appeals and will defend property rights. Namely, it will confirm the invalidity of the results of electronic auctions, which alienated the land plot at a deliberately low price,” he said.
The companies Auchan Retail Ukraine and Ceetrus Ukraine, part of the Auchan holding, defend in the courts the rights to land plots in the village of Lymanka (formerly the village of Mizikevycha, Ovidiopolsky district, Odesa region) with a total area of about 27 hectares, previously seized as material evidence and sold at an auction at a reduced price.
“We cannot now assess the damage that the company experienced by the raiding. But the state of Ukraine has already suffered losses: at least UAH 1.6 million of court fees, which were collected by the executive service from ARMA, but in fact from the state budget,” Dubas said.
As reported, the Prymorsky District Court of Odesa in April 2019 seized land plots with a total area of about 27 hectares and transferred them to the management of ARMA. Subsequently, according to a court decision in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions, ARMA sold the plots transferred to its management at an auction at a reduced price for UAH 8.765 million.
Ceetrus Ukraine LLC (before June 2018 – Immoshan Ukraine) is an international developer of shopping centers and retail parks in the country.
Auchan Retail is an international retail company. Its first store was opened in France in 1961.
Auchan Retail Ukraine has been operating in Ukraine since 2008
The first ten days of February did not bring any changes in the cost of billets in the domestic market of China, prices remain in the range of $603-624 per tonne ton exw with 13% VAT, at the same time, export quotations grew slightly to $550-560 per tonne fob versus $550 per tonne fob a week earlier.
As noted in the press release of the Ukrainian Industry Expertise, the decline in trading activity on the import markets of Southeast Asia led to a drop in prices at the lower level by $5, to $540-560 per tonne cfr. By the end of the second week of February, incoming supplies began to increase in price again due to the rise in prices for scrap in Turkey.
Weak demand for finished products was a consequence of low business activity on the billet markets in MENA. Billet import prices range from $560-575 per tonne fob versus $585-615 per tonne cfr at the end of January. Proposals for billets from Iran for the sale of large batches decreased to $ 520-525 per tonne fob. At the same time, suppliers no longer make concessions in anticipation of the emerging tendencies to improve the situation in connection with the rise in scrap prices.
Together with the rise in scrap prices and the rise in domestic prices for rebar, supply of semi-finished products on the Turkish market shifted to the upper part of the range of $550-565 per tonne exw. The target level of Turkish importers, as a rule, does not exceed $540-550 pet tonne cfr, while supplies from the CIS countries come in the range of $550-565 per tonne cfr.
According to the forecasts of analysts, CIS producers in the coming weeks will seek to raise quotations by $10-15, using the rise of scrap prices in Turkey and the expected recovery in demand in China and Southeast Asia after the holidays.
On the rebar and wire rod market in China, demand is expected to recover after the holidays, as evidenced by the growth of quotations on the futures market in the first ten days of February. Domestic prices for rebar and wire rod strengthened by $3 over the week due to exchange rate fluctuations to $678 per tonne exw and $699 per tonne exw with 13% VAT, respectively.
On export routes, supplies of Chinese companies increased by $5-10 to $615-630 per tonne fob for rebar and $625-660 per tonne fob for wire rod. Import prices in Southeast Asia over the past two weeks have been $620-640 per tonne cfr for rebar and $635-670 per tonne cfr for wire rod. Moreover, further price increases are expected.
On the Turkish market, the rise in scrap prices and the rise in the cost of billets provoked a jump in domestic prices for rebar by $22, to $600-610 per tonne exw. Export deals last week were in the range of $590-610 per tonne fob, and the last supplies at the end of the second week of February did not fall below $600-610 per tonne fob.
Ukrainian Industry Expertise analyst Oleh Hnytetsky predicts that according to the rise in scrap prices, suppliers of rebar and wire rod in the coming weeks will test the market for increasing export quotations of products at the Black Sea ports by $10-15.
Low domestic demand and a rollback of export quotations since mid-January determine the downward price trend in the Ukrainian rebar market. In conditions of low final demand, excess stocks of rolled products in warehouses and a significant rollback of export quotations, traders were forced to make concessions and reduce domestic prices by an average of UAH 895 for rebar and UAH 740 for wire rod.
Traders’ expectations remain pessimistic as of late February – early March.
The Ukrainian government intends to withdraw from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) agreement on the coordination of interstate relations in postal and electric communications services, which was signed in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on October 9, 1992.
This issue has been included on the agenda of the government’s meeting on February 17.
In this document, the parties agreed to coordinate steps to provide communications services, harmonize the development of communications networks and systems, draw up a concept for research and technology policy and tariff policy, train personnel and coordinate the operations of educational establishments in the field of communications, and protect the common interests of the states within international communications organizations and their bodies.
However, as Kyiv believes, the agreement has not been implemented with regard to Ukraine since it was signed. Furthermore, the Ukrainian government has said, withdrawal from the accord will not impact the interests of Ukrainian citizens.
It was reported in August 2020 that the Ukrainian government had decided to pull out of seven international treaties signed within the CIS between 1993 and 2001.
Specifically, the Ukrainian government asked the country’s Foreign Ministry to notify the CIS Executive Committee of Kyiv’s withdrawal from the decision to establish the Radio Navigation interstate consultative council (January 22, 1993, Minsk), the agreement on long-range radio navigation support in the CIS (March 12, 1993, Moscow), the agreement on the practical use of the provisions of Article 83 bis of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (December 9, 1994, Moscow), the agreement on cooperation in organizing and providing search and rescue support during flights of civil aircraft (December 9, 1994, Moscow), and the agreement on cooperation and protection of civil aviation from acts of illegal interference (May 26, 1995, Moscow).
