Quotes of interbank currency market of Ukraine (UAH for €1, in 01.10.2024-31.10.2024)
Source: Open4Business.com.ua
Ukraine wants to attract American investors in strategic industries and get strong security guarantees, including from the United States, the head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, wrote in his Telegram channel on Sunday.
“The main message of President Vladimir Zelensky is that the situation in the world requires Europe’s strength and unity to be able to respond to any challenges. In addition, during meetings in Munich with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and other American officials, Ukraine received commitments of continued support and political will to achieve sustainable peace,” Yermak said.
He also noted that the president has made it clear that any plans prepared without Ukraine are unacceptable.
“Security guarantees must be strong, effective and real, and include the United States,” Yermak concluded.
Andriy Yermak, SECURITY GUARANTEES, STRATEGIC INDUSTRIES, US investorsi
Vitagro Group of Companies intends to reach the planned capacity of biomethane plant of 3 million cubic meters of biomethane per year in 2025 and in case of successful export is ready to build two more plants to increase production and export, the company’s development and investment director Sergiy Savchuk told Forbes Ukraina.
“We have several projects in the pipeline. Construction of one plant in Khmelnitsky region and another in Rivne region. However, we have not started construction yet, we have to evaluate the results of exports. If we are satisfied, we will quickly build new projects. The total capacity of the two new plants is about 8 million cubic meters of biomethane per year,” he said.
According to his information, the group of companies is considering the option of attracting foreign investors in capital.
He added that now 20 tons of cattle manure or 70-80 tons of slurry are used to produce 1000 cubic meters of biomethane at the plant in Khmelnitsky region.
Vitagro Group has its own cows and bulls – 5700 heads, pigs – 106 thousand heads, manure from which is the raw material for biomethane production. The plant has 20 employees, and 50 specialists were involved in the construction of the plant.
Savchuk suggested that EUR6 mln invested in the construction of the plant in Khmelnitsky region will pay off in five years, but everything will depend on the gas price. If the market continues to grow, EUR6 mln will be recouped faster. Now the cost of biomethane in the company is more than EUR500 per 1000 cubic meters. At the same time, the EU natural gas price is around EUR600 per 1,000 cubic meters as of mid-February 2025.
“Due to the high gas prices in the EU, biomethane is a premium market. We have seen the prospects. Another reason is risk diversification. Our own generation allows us to ensure the group’s energy independence, given the Russian Federation’s energy strikes,” emphasized the company’s development and investment director.
Preparing for the first export delivery of biomethane took the company’s team 5 months of work. Vitagro noted that the whole process of exporting biomethane was a challenge for them: from connecting to the grid, which took several months, injecting the biomethane, quality control to customs clearance and delivery to the border.
Ukrainian enterprises have worsened production indicators and their plans for the long term have slightly deteriorated, but in January 87.8% of respondents expected that the end of the war would improve business, these are the results of a monthly survey of enterprises by the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Advice (IEI).
“This proves that the war is the main factor that affects businesses, although they have adapted,” IEI quoted IEI executive director Oksana Kuzyakiv in a statement.
It is noted that the second factor that can help business to develop is the stability or even reduction of taxes (47%). “And if we add to them 21.7% of those who want taxes at least not to increase, we see that this is such a reaction of business to the increase in taxes, in particular military levy on employees and FLP,” – said Oksana Kuzyakiv.
On the third place of “wishes” is the reservation of workers (23.9%). Although fewer businesses expect the solution to this issue than during the previous survey in August (31.9%). Among the leaders of expectations are deregulation and affordable credit.
At the same time, de-occupation of Ukraine’s territories is almost not mentioned by businesses (14.7%) as a factor that can improve their performance.
The Business Activity Recovery Index (BARI) deteriorated significantly in January to 0.09 from 0.16 in December. The IED believes that this decline occurred in all four business groups, including large companies that were still showing optimism back in December.
The level of business uncertainty did not change significantly over the month. At the same time, the majority of businesses – 81.5% – do not expect significant changes in their activities in the 2-year perspective.
The utilization of production capacities increased in January. The share of enterprises operating at almost full capacity (from 75% to 99%) increased from 42% in December to 54% in January. This was mainly due to a decrease in the share of those operating at 50-74% of capacity – from 26% to 17%.
It is noted that production activity has slightly deteriorated: the share of entrepreneurs who increased the volume of production decreased from 25.2% to 21.3%. In the perspective of the next three months, the share of those who plan to increase production increased from 29.6% to 32.8%. Similar trends were observed in exports. The share of those who will increase exports rose from 35% to 39.4%, while those who plan to decrease fell from 4.9% to 3.6%.
Worries about the difficulty of finding skilled workers continue to diminish – 49.9% of businesses complained of this in January after 51.6% in December, while 34.2% of respondents had problems hiring unskilled staff.
Labor shortages as a result of the draft and/or employee departures remain a major obstacle to doing business during wartime. At the same time, however, a record 65% of businesses were concerned about this problem in January. This surpassed the previous high of 64% reached in November.
In second place remains “dangerous to work” (52%), but the number of businessmen who complained about interruptions in water, electricity and heat supply has decreased (51%).
In the January stage of the survey 478 enterprises from 21 regions of Ukraine took part.
Budshlyakhmash Group of Companies has officially become the exclusive distributor of JAC commercial vehicles in Ukraine, the company announced on its Facebook page.
“The sales policy of JAC is similar to European manufacturers, when there is a single representative in the region responsible for promotion, brand development and high level of technical and service support for customers,” Yuriy Basyuk, head of marketing department, is quoted in the message.
He emphasized that all JAC products supplied to Ukraine are certified in the EU, which significantly distinguishes the JAC brand from most other manufacturers from the PRC
“Our cooperation with JAC began two years ago, and we are pleased that the results of joint work allowed both parties from 2025 to move to a new format of cooperation, distribution of development of new models for the Ukrainian market, service support and activation. In addition, for the first time in many years of work in the Ukrainian market, JAC has granted exclusive rights for product distribution,” he added.
According to the group of companies, for Ukrainian business this means guaranteed deliveries directly from the JAC Motors factory, official warranty and post-warranty service, original spare parts without delays and unnecessary markups and an expanded dealer network in Ukraine.
“Budshlyakhmash” also informs that representatives of the company visited the production facilities of Chinese engineering giants – JAC and Zoomlion plants.
“An important part of the negotiations was the issue of localization of medium and especially heavy class of JAC vehicles in Ukraine,” the report says.
Budshlyakhmash Group of Companies is the official representative in Ukraine of domestic and foreign manufacturers of special, road and municipal equipment (brands JAC, Scania, Renault, MAN, Pronar, Daewoo, Spetsbudmash).
JAC Motors is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of commercial vehicles. In 2020, a joint venture between JAC and Volkswagen was established.
In Ukraine on Monday, February 17, at night in the north, in the afternoon in most central and eastern regions of light snow, in the rest of the territory without precipitation, reported Ukrhydrometcenter.
Wind of variable directions, 3-8 m/s. The roads are icy.
The temperature at night is 10-15° frost, in the Carpathians, in the east of the country, Sumy and Chernihiv regions up to 18° frost, during the day 2-7° frost; in the southern part and in Transcarpathia at night 6-11° frost, during the day about 0°.
In Kiev on February 17, there will be light snow at night and no precipitation during the day. The wind is variable, 3-8 m/s. The roads are icy. The temperature at night is 11-13° frost, while in the daytime it will be 4-6° frost.
According to the Central Geophysical Observatory named after Boris Sreznevsky. Borys Sreznevsky, in Kiev on February 17, the highest temperature during the day was 11.1 ° in 1974, the lowest at night -21.8 ° in 1892.
Tuesday, February 18, in Ukraine without precipitation. The roads are icy, wind of variable directions, 3-8 m/s.
The temperature at night 10-15° frost, in the Carpathians and in the east of the country in some places up to 18°, in Transcarpathia and southern regions 7-12° frost; in the daytime 1-6° frost, in the southern part and in Transcarpathia about 0°.
In Kiev on February 18 – no precipitation, icy, wind of variable directions, 3-8 m/s.
The temperature at night is 11-13°; during the day 1-3° of frost.
