Business news from Ukraine

In Ukraine, oil producers are loaded with raw materials, which caused the collapse of domestic purchase prices for sunflower seeds, the sunflower market will pass the “price bottom” in mid-October, according to the analytical cooperative “Pusk”, established within the framework of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Rada (VAR).

“Domestically, processing plants have started to collapse sunflower prices, as they have contracted the necessary volumes of raw materials for September. There are factories staffed with oilseeds a month in advance, others – for one or two weeks. Accordingly, processors will buy raw materials in a wide price range of 10500-12500 UAH/ton”, – analysts explained and expressed hope that in the first weeks of October the market will see the lowest prices for sunflower.

According to experts, despite the ban on sunflower imports to five neighboring EU countries, Bulgaria contracts Ukrainian sunflower and many agreements have already been signed. Although Bulgaria has not officially announced the imminent lifting of bans on imports of Ukrainian grain, but trade in this direction is very active.

“A certain decrease in vegetable oil prices on the global market will support the current downward price trend in the Ukrainian sunflower market,” the BAR forecasts.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has appointed Ukrnafta PJSC as the asset manager of the Glusco gas station network, Naftohaz Ukrayiny’s board head Oleksiy Chernyshov has said.

“Also the Cabinet set the task to settle the issue of reimbursement of expenses incurred by Naftogaz Oil Trading LLC (“NOT”, a network of gas stations U.GO), which was engaged in restarting the arrested commercial assets of Medvedchuk”, – he specified on his page in Facebook.

As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in May 2022 agreed the proposal of ARMA to transfer to the management of NJSC “Naftogaz of Ukraine” arrested assets of the company Glusco (until 2018 – the network of NK “Rosneft”), which were associated with Viktor Medvedchuk,
NOT was identified as the asset manager, with which ARMA subsequently entered into a fixed-term management agreement.

At the end of July 2023, ARMA head Olena Duma said that the National Agency would conduct audits of the efficiency of management of the largest assets, and the audit of the efficiency of Naftogaz’s management of the Glusco network of gas stations has already begun.
In early August, ARMA announced the termination of contracts with NOT to manage the assets of the Glusco gas station network.

At the same time, Naftogaz said that 81 filling stations and one oil depot, which had been out of operation for a year and a half, were resumed under the management of NOT, and that employees’ salaries were paid in a timely manner. From August 2022 to July 2023, 289 million UAH of mandatory payments to the state and local budgets were paid.

The head of Naftohaz Ukrayiny, Oleksiy Chernyshov, said that during the period of managing the Glusco assets, the group had invested significant funds in restoring the network’s operation, repaid its debts, and, at ARMA’s request, paid them “for some part of future profits, as they are not yet in question”.

On November 5, 2022, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief decided to seize the shares of Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta (except for the controlling and blocking stakes in Naftogaz Ukrainy, respectively) from the state as military property for the duration of martial law. Prior to the seizure, the structures of Ihor Kolomoyskyy and Hennadiy Boholyubov owned about 42% of Ukrnafta shares and, together with other partners, a controlling stake in Ukrtatnafta.

More than 5,000 people are believed to be dead and 10,000 missing after storm rains in northeastern Libya caused two dams to collapse, CNN reported Tuesday, citing Tamer Ramadan, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ delegation to Libya.

“The death toll is enormous,” she said.

At least 5,300 people are believed dead, Libya’s interior ministry in the eastern administration said Tuesday, state media LANA reported. CNN was unable to independently verify the number of dead or missing.

Some 6,000 people remain missing in the eastern city of Derna, which suffered the worst destruction, Osman Abduljalil, the health minister of Libya’s eastern administration, told Almasar TV. He called the situation “catastrophic” after touring the city on Monday. According to authorities, entire neighborhoods in the city have been washed away.

Hospitals in Derna are no longer operating and morgues are overcrowded, emergency services spokesman Osama Ali said. Corpses were being left outside morgues on sidewalks, he said.
“There are no emergency services. People are currently working to collect rotting bodies,” said Anas Barghati, a doctor who is currently volunteering in Derna.

Storm Danielle, which hit several towns in northeastern Libya, was the result of a cyclone that caused catastrophic flooding in Greece last week and then spread to the Mediterranean Sea. The storm caused two dams to collapse, causing water to rush toward Derna, causing catastrophic damage, authorities said Tuesday.

“Three bridges were destroyed. The flow of water carried away entire neighborhoods, eventually dumping them into the sea,” said Ahmed Mismari, a spokesman for the Libyan National Army (LNA).

Libya’s vulnerability to extreme weather has been exacerbated by a protracted political conflict and power struggle between two rival administrations.

The UN-backed Government of National Unity (GNU) led by Abdulhamid Dbeibe sits in Tripoli in northwestern Libya, while its eastern rival is controlled by Commander Khalifa Haftar and his LNA, who support the east-based parliament. led by Osama Hamad.

Derna, about 300 kilometers east of Benghazi, falls under the control of Haftar and his eastern administration.

47% of Ukrainians perceive corruption as the biggest obstacle to the development of entrepreneurship in the country, according to a survey conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in cooperation with the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology on July 3-17, 2023.

“According to the survey conducted in July 2023, corruption is perceived by citizens as the biggest obstacle to the development of entrepreneurship in the country. This was noted by 47% of respondents. For comparison: 37% named the destruction caused by the war as the biggest obstacle, 36% – inadequate tax administration and control system, 36% – weak support from the state,” the report on the results of the study published on Monday on the official website of the Fund says.

As noted, “problems that directly depend on the quality of public administration occupy three of the top four positions that, according to Ukrainians, hinder the development of entrepreneurship. At the same time, the next most negative impact on entrepreneurship is the outflow of specialists and entrepreneurs abroad (29%) and the outflow of employees abroad (28%).”

Sociologists have recorded that corruption as an obstacle to entrepreneurship was mentioned somewhat more often in the East (55%) and less often in the West (43%) of the country. Similarly, critical attitudes toward tax control are noticeably increasing from the West (30%) to the East (43%). Respondents in the eastern (40%) and southern regions (33%) mentioned the outflow of specialists and entrepreneurs abroad more often than in the western (22%) and central regions (27%), which were less affected by the hostilities. The same situation is with the outflow of workers: it was mentioned more often in the east (37%) and south (31%) than in the west (25%) and center (24%).

“It is significant,” the report says, “that there is a distrust in society of domestic agents of post-war economic and infrastructure recovery. In particular, in July 2023, only 17.5% of respondents agreed with the opinion that state-owned Ukrainian companies and banks could effectively and without corruption carry out the country’s post-war recovery. The level of trust in Ukrainian private companies and banks is even lower – 8%.

Currently, large Western companies and banks (28%) and international financial organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank (19%) have the highest, but also low, levels of trust. Large non-Western companies and banks (China, UAE, Saudi Arabia) have the lowest level of trust – only 3% of respondents.

The survey was conducted face-to-face in all regions of Ukraine, except for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson regions. In Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv regions, the survey was conducted in the territories controlled by the Government of Ukraine and not subject to hostilities. 2011 respondents aged 18 and older were interviewed.