Illegal timber trade in Ukraine is about 30% of the legal, or UAH 5 billion per year, Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Roman Abramovsky has said.
“This is a lot of money that can be used for forest management, fire-prevention measures, including replacing the species in the composition of forests,” Abramovsky said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, in order to comprehensively solve forestry problems, the ministry is working on a strategy for managing Ukrainian forests until 2035, which, in particular, provides for the separation of economic and regulatory functions of the State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine.
“Everything is kept in one body. There is a conflict of interests, corruption risks. Therefore, part of the economic functions must be given to a separate entity or business entities,” the minister said. He said that it could be one company or a concern with regional units.
The minister also expressed support for the development of electronic auctions for the sale of timber, its certification and traceability “from forest to product.”
In his opinion, it is necessary to provide for the possibility of auctioning both large lots for large woodworking enterprises and small lots for local producers, which today, according to him, “actually depend on the mood of the director of the forestry enterprise.”
At the same time, Abramovsky said that the issue of motivating the heads of forestry enterprises to boost profits remains important.
“Now the payments of a part of the net profit to the state budget are at the level of 90%. This simply depletes funds of enterprises. We will make proposals on this matter that the share of net profit should be 30%, since even in the current state the forestry industry pays UAH 6 billion in taxes, in fact receiving nothing from the state,” Abramovsky said.
Logistics Company Marken (the United States) has opened a pharmaceutical depot in Kyiv, according to a company’s press release published by PRNewswire.
“Ukraine continues to be important in Eastern Europe’s clinical trial market and our Kyiv depot will strengthen our position in the region,” Marken President Ariette van Strien said.
Marken’s depots include space for pallet storage and a full range of temperature-controlled storage options including refrigerators and freezers, the press release said.
Marken is a wholly owned subsidiary of the UPS Healthcare division. The company has a network of 56 depots for pharmaceutical products and biological samples around the world.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) will allocate EUR 270 million to the state-owned enterprise Boryspil International Airport for the implementation of an investment plan to improve infrastructure and expand capacity.
According to a posting on the bank’s website, the board of directors approved the project on December 16 this year.
The EIB document states that the total cost of this project is approximately EUR 351 million, but other sources of co-financing are not specified.
According to the financial institution, this operation is covered by the EU guarantee for EIB loans outside the EU, and the organizer of the work must ensure that any procurement procedures are carried out in accordance with the EIB procurement guidelines and EU public procurement rules.
“Major works include the rehabilitation of the western airfield system, including the western runway (18R-36L), which has been operating for more than 50 years and is in poor condition, the associated parallel taxiway, the airfield ground lighting and the instrument landing systems, plus a range of other associated airside infrastructure works,” the bank said on its website.
As reported, earlier the Ministry of Infrastructure offered the EBRD to participate in financing the Boryspil airport investment plan.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal believes that the protection of the rights and interests of Ukrainian business abroad should become a daily line of work for diplomatic institutions.
“Ukrainian business, which has won a place in the markets of the world’s countries, also needs support. This should become a daily line of work for diplomatic services. I urge you to be active and persistent in protecting our business,” the government’s press service said, citing Shmyhal.
The prime minister said that the role of every Ukrainian diplomat in promoting the economic interests of Ukraine in the world is extremely important, since in a pandemic, any business needs support and assistance.
The head of government also said that an equally important area of work of the diplomatic services is to attract foreign direct investment into the Ukrainian economy.
According to him, the government has approved priority investment projects in a number of industries, such as energy, transport, processing industry.
“Such projects can be implemented with the involvement of investors, in particular on the terms of public-private partnership, international technical assistance or at the expense of credit funds and the budget. It is necessary for investors to create favorable conditions for them to confidently go to Ukraine. And they take the first step through diplomatic services,” Shmyhal said.
The prime minister said that work is underway on the 2030 National Economic Strategy, which contains the vectors of Ukraine’s development, including IT and Research and Development.
“The field of development, innovation and technology in Ukraine has significant potential. We have enough young scientists who need to be presented with worthy projects and challenges. Scientists must have opportunities to implement their potential. We, as the government, are ready to lend a shoulder and provide such opportunities. But partner experience and assistance of diplomats abroad are also needed,” Shmyhal said.
The State Budget of Ukraine for 2021 provides for an increase in funding for medicine, education and science, as well as the security and defense sector, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“Firstly, this is money for medicine. Almost UAH 160 billion. It is the most during the years of Ukraine’s independence. … We have raised salaries for doctors by 30%, but we all understand that this is not enough, so we strive to continue increasing their salaries in 2021,” Zelensky said in his vlog posted on his official Telegram channel on Friday night.
We also plan to equip 210 ER departments and 450 new ambulances. Supplemental payments for doctors who fight COVID-19 will be continued.
Next year education and science will receive UAH 26 billion more, and in total almost UAH 170 billion will be allocated for their development. In particular, the salaries of educators will increase by 20%.
As for defense expenditures, the budget of the Ministry of Defense in 2017 amounted to UAH 69 billion, in 2018 – UAH 86 billion, in 2019 – UAH 102 billion, and in 2021 it will reach over UAH 117 billion.
In general, the budget for the security and defense sphere, including expenditures on intelligence, the State Border Guard Service and the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, amounted to more than UAH 267 billion.
Also, according to the president, starting from January 1 next year, the minimum wage will increase to UAH 6,000, and during the year it will increase to UAH 6,500.
The President thanked MPs from the Servant of the People party and other political forces for supporting the state budget and passing a number of other important laws. In particular, Zelensky noted the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of a law on the restoration of the powers of the National Agency for Corruption Prevention, which were previously revoked by a decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.
The total amount of applications for budgetary value added tax (VAT) refunds in December exceeds UAH 14 billion, and it will be financed on time, said head of the State Tax Service Oleksiy Liubchenko.
“In December, we have full understanding that the application for UAH 14.1 billion will be given to payers, which didn’t happen in December 2019,” Liubchenko said on the air of Savik Shuster’s program Freedom of Speech (Svoboda Slova) on Friday.
He noted that following the results of 11 months of this year, applications for budgetary VAT refunds amounted to UAH 122.7 billion, while UAH 128 billion was reimbursed during this period.
