The Verkhovna Rada has adopted in the first reading draft law No. 7457 on regulating the circulation of cannabis plants for medical, scientific and industrial purposes.
The adoption of the document as a basis was supported by 268 people’s deputies at the plenary session on Thursday, said co-chair of the faction “European Solidarity” Irina Gerashchenko.
“The long-suffering bill on medical cannabis was adopted in the first reading. It was supported by 268 deputies, including part of the faction “EU” (“European Solidarity”). “I also voted in favor, although there are many questions to the bill, it needs to be finalized for the second reading,” she wrote in her Telegram channel.
The parliamentarian emphasized that such a law should help in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), pain reduction in cancer, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and other conditions.
“Unfortunately, this bill is not so much about medicine as it is about industrial cannabis cultivation and the government’s corrupt schemes regarding permits and the development of huge funding streams. Our faction will submit amendments, will finalize the bill for the second reading, so that the emphasis was exactly on medicine and pain relief, but not on industrial cultivation,” – specified the parliamentarian.
As noted in the explanatory note, the bill proposes to create regulatory conditions for the legal limited circulation of cannabis, cannabis resin, extracts and tinctures of cannabis for the purposes defined by this document, in particular, for their use for medical, industrial purposes, scientific and scientific-technical activities, as well as its varieties in certain areas of activity.
The Government considers it necessary to regulate the issues related to the organization of activities at each stage of such circulation of cannabis, including operations on import, export, transportation on the territory of Ukraine, storage and sale of cannabis, to contribute to the improvement of the level and quality of medical care of the population by ensuring the realization of the right to health care with the use of more effective medicines and methods of treatment, in particular in the field of palliative care, which, among other things, are based on symptomatic treatment.
As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers submitted the draft law No. 7457 to the Verkhovna Rada in June 2022. The profile committee of the Parliament on the health of the nation recommended to accept it as a basis. Later, in September, the head of the committee, Mykhailo Radutskyy (Servant of the People faction), said that there would probably not be enough votes in the Rada to support the bill on medical cannabis.
Ukraine will have to attract an additional 4.5 million employees to the labor market over the next ten years to make a post-war recovery, the Economy Ministry predicted on Thursday following a seminar with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the International Labor Organization (ILO).
“Labor market recovery is not a consequence of victory, it is a path to victory,” the ministry quoted Deputy Economy Minister Tatyana Berezhnaya as saying.
It is pointed out that even before the full-scale invasion Ukraine was facing a labor shortage, but now that more than 6 million Ukrainians have been forced to go abroad, the labor situation in the country has become even more critical.
It is noted that the IOM and ILO plan to continue to support the Ministry of Economy in paving the way for labor market recovery to achieve key priorities.
“We look forward to working closely together to help the state on its road to recovery and shape a more promising future for Ukraine and its people. Economic recovery is paramount to this process,” said IOM Representative Office Chairman Anh Nguyen at the seminar.
The event was attended by 40 participants from the Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Infrastructure, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Education, State Employment Service and State Migration Service, Office of the President, Ministry of Digital Transformation, Ministry of Culture and State Border Service, as well as IOM, ILO and NGOs.
Southern European countries are suffering from the “Cerberus” heat wave, in the coming days in some regions temperatures may rise to 45 degrees Celsius and higher, Western media reported.
The Associated Press agency reports that according to the Spanish meteorological service, in the coming days in the southeastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula, temperatures may rise to 45 degrees Celsius. At the same time, high temperatures are already being recorded there: already at 6:00 Wednesday more than 100 weather stations recorded temperatures of at least 35 degrees Celsius.
In other areas of the peninsula, a slight drop in temperature is expected.
At the same time, temperatures have already exceeded or will exceed the 40 degrees Celsius mark in France, Greece, Croatia and Turkey in the coming days. The BBC reports that the situation is toughest in Italy, where the heatwave could reach 48.8 degrees Celsius, a weather record for Europe set in the country in 2021. At the moment, the highest level of meteorological danger has been introduced in 10 Italian cities, including Florence and Rome. On Tuesday, a 44-year-old man died in the north of the country due to high temperatures. Several tourists suffered heat strokes.
Sky News reports that temperatures could rise to 40-45 degrees in some parts of Greece, while the average for this time of year usually stays at 32, and the Czech city of Prague is expected to reach 34 degrees on Saturday – 10 above the July average of 24. In northern Africa, the heat may reach 50 degrees: in Tunisia, 49 degrees Celsius has already been recorded.
The cause of the high temperatures is the “Cerberus” heat wave, which was given that name by the Italian Meteorological Society. CNN notes that “Cerberus” may replace the new atmospheric front “Charon” on Friday, which could cause temperatures in Italy to rise even higher next week.
In many countries, authorities are urging citizens to take precautions while outdoors, traveling unnecessarily is not recommended.
The volume of industrial production in the UK in May decreased by 0.6% compared to the previous month, according to the British National Statistics Office (ONS).
The indicator declined for the second month in a row and showed the worst dynamics since August last year.
Analysts polled by Trading Economics expected a decline of 0.4%.
In annualized terms, industrial production fell by 2.3%, matching the forecast, after declining by a revised 1.6% a month earlier.
The country’s manufacturing output in May fell 0.2% from April, electricity and gas production fell 2%, while the mining sector rose 0.3%.
For more information on key macroeconomic indicators in Ukraine and the world, see the link on the YouTube channel Club of Experts at the link:
Recently, I came across a lively discussion on social media about a certain issue, and it went like this: “There is a war in the country, the real estate market is not even operating at half capacity, and prices are rising. Who will buy it?”. I have an answer: they are and will continue to grow, because no one has canceled the laws of the market. Another question is what to do with the limited effective demand. In my opinion, the answers should be sought within the market, not outside, relying solely on reparations or government support. Let’s go through everything in order.
Why prices are rising
The key factor affecting the price of a square meter has been and remains the growth of construction costs and related expenses, primarily influenced by inflationary processes. Let me just remind you that we had almost 27% inflation in annual terms. The price tag is also driven up by contract extensions and sometimes by radical changes in supply chains due to the loss of capacity of certain building materials producers in the southern and eastern regions and the relocation of many businesses. We should also mention the cost of labor, which increased by an average of 37%, and we should not forget about the costs of fuel and lubricants, machinery, and goods and services of 40 related industries involved in housing construction. Hyperinflation and exchange rate fluctuations have hit the market.
For your understanding: last year, the weighted average cost of housing construction increased by at least 45%. In some categories of building materials, we saw growth of 30-70%. Concrete, glass, putty, wood, and iron are the record holders. This directly affects the price of a square meter.
What to do with real demand
At the same time, limited effective demand in the market, and even almost zero sales in some stagnant periods, is a constraint on price growth. In some months, if the company sold 5-10 apartments per month, it was already a success and an indicator that people trust the brand and believe in the product.
All this time, it was necessary to continue building so that people had time to adapt, to make sure that the actions were firm, that they were being built and would be completed, that it was not in words but in actions. Nothing says it better than your product, its format and liquidity, as well as the real construction dynamics on the site.
By the way, the situation with real demand has been improving since the end of winter. And in the spring months, the team managed to return more than a third of the pre-war figures, despite the complexity of the situation.
Why did we succeed? I believe that a combination of factors worked here, which can be scaled up further if desired:
1. We resumed construction in June 2022 and, despite all the difficulties of the first year of the full-scale war, we persevered and commissioned 19 thousand square meters.
2. Investors saw that the company was working and gradually began to pay under installment agreements. As a result, if at the beginning of the full-scale invasion only 10% of installment agreements were paid on time, now this figure reaches 50%.
Exactly half of those who bought real estate from us are not waiting for the war to end and are already fulfilling their obligations. They see that every hryvnia from their pockets is actually spent on the construction of their own home, not just a new pit. We are now working to ensure that by the end of the year the percentage of those who pay under installment agreements will be at the level of 80-90%.
3. We have developed financial instruments to support and stimulate demand.
For example, in October-December, we offered special conditions for debt repayment and early repayment of installment plans. We offered a favorable exchange rate, for example, UAH 33-34/$, and debt restructuring to start making payments. We launched a guaranteed yield program at 10% per annum in dollars, a trade-in program.
Of course, it is too early to dream about the volume of transactions that we had before the war. The market’s recovery and potential will directly depend on the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ counteroffensive, or rather, on its results and timing. We can already see that psychologically, buyers and investors are gradually ready to return to the market if there is a complete coincidence in their expectations in the price-value-construction time axis and real dynamics.
Author: Alexander Nasikovsky, Managing Partner of DIM Group of Companies.
Gold prices are rising on Tuesday amid a decline in the dollar and yields on U.S. government bonds on expectations of the publication of data on U.S. inflation.
Quotes of August gold contracts on the New York Comex exchange by 18:52 Q2 rose by 0.27% to $1936.2 per troy ounce.
New U.S. inflation data will be released on Wednesday. Analysts polled by Trading Economics on average forecast consumer price growth in the world’s largest economy slowed to 3.1% last month from 4% in May.
Core inflation (the CPI Core index, which excludes fuel and food prices), meanwhile, stood at 5.3% in May and is forecast to fall to 5% in June.
Ahead of the statistical release, the dollar index is down 0.1% and the yield on 10-year US Treasuries is down 1.5 basis points to 3.986%.
“We see government bond yields falling earlier in the week as investors wait for inflation to fall in June,” said StoneX analyst Fawad Razaqzada. – This has slightly boosted the comparative attractiveness of gold versus bonds.”
