German Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock told her Polish counterpart Zbigniew Rau that Berlin would not pay reparations for World War II to Poland under any circumstances, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
“The question of reparations, as you know, from the point of view of the German authorities, is closed,” Burbock said during a press conference in Warsaw. The conference took place after ministerial talks on the subject.
In turn, Rau expressed the hope that Germany’s position could change.
On Monday, the head of the Polish Foreign Ministry sent a note to Germany, which requested about $1.3 trillion in reparations for material and other damage that Germany inflicted on Poland during the occupation in 1939-1945.
The negative balance of Ukraine’s foreign trade in goods in September amounted to $354 million, which is three times less than in August ($1,052.6 million), said Taras Kachka, Deputy Minister of Economy, Trade Representative of Ukraine.
“Export – $ 4.144 billion, 23% more than in August. Export volume – 9.66 million tons, 32% more than in August,” he wrote on Facebook.
According to the data presented by him, imports in September increased only by 1.9%, to $4.498 billion.
“September exports are more than $4 billion and more than 9 million tons for the first time since February 24,” the trade representative emphasized.
Kachka also pointed out that in September, exports of agro-industrial complex and food industry reached 6.928 million tons against 4.566 million tons in August and 2.985 million tons in July. This was the result of an increase in shipments by sea – from 1.436 million in July to 2.723 million tons in August and 5.175 million tons in September.
Export by railway transport in September decreased to 902.2 thousand tons compared to 970.5 thousand tons in August and 886.5 thousand tons in July, by road – to 849.6 thousand tons in September from 872 .4 thousand tons in August and 662.4 thousand tons in July.
In Zhytomyr and Lvov, they plan to build new thermal power plants on biofuel in a short time to save and reduce the use of natural gas, the press service of NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine reported.
Naftogaz has begun preparatory work for the construction of thermal power plants that will operate on biomass (wood cod) and solid secondary fuel (RDF) in Lvov and Zhytomyr. The total capacity of the facilities will be 90 MW of thermal energy and 11 MW of electricity. The planned period for putting objects into operation in Lviv is the 1st quarter of 2023, in Zhytomyr – the 4th quarter of 2023,” the text of the release published on the company’s website on Saturday says.
As noted, Naftogaz intends to build at least 9 thermal power plants and bio-boiler houses in 8 regions of Ukraine with a total capacity of 250 MW of thermal energy and 52 MW of electricity.
“The company has an ambitious goal of becoming the largest biomass heat generator by 2027 and replacing about 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Ukraine can almost completely abandon the use of natural gas for central heating, replacing it, in particular, with bioenergy,” the statement said. release.
It is reported that during his working trip on September 30 and October 1 to Lviv and Zhytomyr, the head of the board, Yuriy Vitrenko, noted that the NAC helps Ukrainian cities to transfer their CHPPs from gas to biofuel (we are talking about projects in Zhytomyr, Lvov, Akhtyrka) and is ready to support and other cities in this direction.
“We are interested in investing in such projects in order to import less gas at enormous prices. The implementation of such projects is also economically beneficial, and for the environment, such investments quickly pay off, while tax money goes to local budgets, and the number of jobs grows” , Vitrenko stressed.
According to him, a comprehensive approach is needed for a smooth passage of the heating season. In particular, sufficient gas reserves in storage (currently 13.9 billion cubic meters) and stabilization of its own production (gas – IF-U) are the most important tasks for Naftogaz, and the transition of heat generating enterprises to modern technologies and the use of biofuels, and the modernization of networks to reduce heat loss.
In turn, the mayors of Lviv and Zhytomyr Sergey Sukhomlin and Andrey Sadovy noted the successful implementation of this project, which will be able to provide the production of 50 MW of energy generated from alternative fuels and reduce the dependence of cities on natural gas, Naftogaz stressed.
Thus, in Zhytomyr in 2023 they plan to use 10% of the consumed gas, in particular, in 2015, 93 million cubic meters of gas, and in 2022 there should be about 45 million cubic meters. The authorities plan to implement three projects in the city to save gas and turn household waste into heat and electricity.
And in Lvov Novoyavorivsk plans to build a modern thermal power plant in a short time. Sadovyi noted that it will cover about a quarter of the city’s heat needs. The project also includes the construction of a sorting complex for municipal solid waste.
“Cod trees and the organic component of MSW will be used as fuel for the thermal power plant – this is paper, cardboard, food waste, wood, leather, fabric. By implementing this project, we will be able to save $ 24 million that we spent on gas. And the residents of Novoyavorivsk will receive cheaper heat and hot water throughout the year,” the NAC said.
According to the project, the required volume of MSW collection is 70,000 tons per year, which includes 30-35% secondary resources, as well as biodegradable and combustible (65%), namely about 45,000 tons per year. Another fuel component is planned to use wood chips with a volume of 39,000 tons per year.
The United States Congress on Friday approved a bill to provide Ukraine with a $12.3 billion military and economic aid package, The New Yorks Times reports.
“On Friday, Congress gave final approval to a short-term package that would allow the government to operate until mid-December and avoid a midnight shutdown, as well as send about $12.3 billion in military and economic assistance to Ukraine,” the statement said.
It clarifies that the House of Representatives passed the document less than 12 hours before the funding deadline and submitted it to President Biden for signature.
This will allow the government to work until December 16, giving lawmakers time to iron out significant disagreements over a dozen annual spending bills.
According to them, the package of said assistance includes the third tranche of assistance to Ukraine to fight Russia, in addition to the total amount of about $54 billion approved earlier this year.
“Following Friday’s vote, Congress has given Ukraine more military aid than any other country in a single year since the Vietnam War, signaling a remarkable bipartisan consensus in favor of pouring massive amounts of American resources into the fight as the country seeks to wrest much of its power from Russia. territory,” the reporters said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine is intensifying work on the NAZOVNI system to support domestic business, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
“Last year, at the conference of ambassadors, we presented to the President a unique product – the NAZOVNI digital system. This is an electronic account of the exporter, which is directly connected with all Ukrainian diplomatic missions around the world. To be honest, we did not deal with this project from February to June due to objective circumstances, but then I said that war is war, but helping Ukrainian business is also helping Ukraine win the war, because the economy must live,” Kuleba said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
The Minister stressed that no country has won the war with a dead economy.
“We have sharply increased turnover on NAZOVNI, connected absolutely all embassies and consulates to it. This is the principle of one window: the exporter came in, created an office for himself, indicated that he was selling to the countries that interested him, the embassy of the corresponding country immediately saw it, worked it out request, went back to the exporter and said: “You can sell so much of this here, here is the partner, here is the contact, here is how the local legislation works,” he said.
Kuleba added that every two or three weeks he receives a selection of reactions that the business leaves for the work of NAZOVNI.
“We do this in order to hear comments and improve, fix bugs in the system. Our basic client is small and medium-sized businesses, we help them enter foreign markets and earn currency. And when they write kind words, they are amazed that everyone works and the state really helps, it motivates us to work even harder,” he explained.
The head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry drew attention to the fact that now the number of applications in the system has increased dramatically, and it is clear that business has felt the real help of diplomats. According to him, as of September 25, 662 companies are already registered in the NAZOVNI system. Basically, these are producers of agricultural products, food, cosmetics, textiles, wood and wood products, heavy industry, IT, construction service providers, Kuleba added.
“In total, this year we received 1,340 applications. And there are already several dozen specific successful projects, when we created new opportunities for Ukrainian companies in foreign markets. We will talk about these cases in more detail in order to attract even more companies to NAZOVNI,” the Foreign Minister assured Ukraine.
During a round table in Brussels on September 27, the companies signed a statement at the initiative of the European Commission in which they pledged to help reduce the cost of transfers to Ukraine by up to 3%, the press service of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, the heads of Visa, Mastercard, Wise, Extrabanca, Ria Money Transfer, Small World, TransferGo, PrivatBank, Oschadbank, Ukrgasbank, Raiffeisen Bank, PUMB, A-Bank, NovaPay, Ukrposhta, UFG PJSC signed a joint statement.
They committed to provide competitive transfer services to the Ukrainian diaspora, internally displaced persons from Ukraine and anyone who wants to support Ukrainians and transfer funds to Ukraine.
Deputy head of the NBU Oleksiy Shaban pointed out that it is possible to receive transfers in Ukraine using all available methods that were in peacetime (through international systems for transferring funds from card to card via SWIFT using the IBAN number).
He added that at the beginning of the war, most international funds transfer systems completely abolished fees for transfers to Ukraine.
In general, according to preliminary estimates of the National Bank, in January-July 2022, $7.6 billion was transferred to Ukraine, which is 5.7% less than in the same period of the previous pre-war year.
The war in Ukraine led to a decrease in transfers through official channels by about 12%. At the same time, the flow through informal channels increased by almost 3%.
According to NBU statistics, of all funds transferred to Ukraine from abroad in January-July 2022, about a quarter (24%) came through international transfer systems.
