Interpipe reported that it is currently implementing three investment projects. The largest of them, worth about $40 mln, is the construction of a new pipe heat treatment section. Two more projects are being implemented in the railroad division at the Interpipe NTZ plant in Dnipro.
Nikopol-based Centravis has planned to modernize its pipe-pressing line in the first half of 2024, which will reduce metal waste in the production process. The volume of investments in this project is about $3.5 million.
First Deputy Prime Minister noted that on the day of the visit to the enterprises in Nikopol and Kryvyi Rih these cities had been shelled by the occupants. Therefore, against this background, information about bold investment plans of Dnipropetrovsk enterprises looks particularly impressive.
According to her, metallurgy has always been a fundamental branch of the Ukrainian economy. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the domestic MMC created about 10% of GDP and brought about a third of cash proceeds from all commodity exports. This industry was and still is export-oriented, with more than 80% of metal products shipped abroad.
“The most important thing the government can do now for Ukrainian metallurgy is to ensure unimpeded exports by sea. We have an important achievement in this direction. In September, the first ships with metal traveled through the temporary sea corridor. And in November, we recorded a total increase in exports by sea by 70%. Metal exports are starting to work. This means that metallurgists and miners will have work, and the Ukrainian budget will receive additional taxes. Now we are working on the full unblocking of maritime logistics and launching the mechanism of ship insurance, which is already in place,” Sviridenko summarized, as quoted by the press service.
The company “Biosphere” used the state credit program “5-7-9” and in January 2024 will launch a new shop for tea production, about $20 million has been invested in this project, according to the press release of the Ministry of Economy following the visit of the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine – Minister of Economy Yulia Sviridenko.
It is specified that Sviridenko visited industrial enterprises of Dnipropetrovsk region to get acquainted with production, investment plans and check the effectiveness of state programs to stimulate the economy.
OTP Bank offers small and medium-sized businesses loans for the purchase of equipment with the possibility of reimbursement of part of the costs financed by the bank. Such loans are provided as part of the EBRD’s SME Competitiveness Program in the Eastern Partnership countries.
According to Natalia Kondratchuk, Director of Corporate Finance at OTP Bank: “The purpose of the program is to develop lending aimed at purchasing energy-efficient machinery and equipment by micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and investing in energy-saving technologies. In particular, such financing is intended to meet the needs of local agricultural producers to upgrade their agricultural machinery fleet with products of well-known global brands. In doing so, the borrower will be able to claim compensation for part of the costs financed by the bank’s credit facilities.”
The amount of compensation depends on the type of assets acquired and can reach 20% of the loan proceeds. The reimbursement will be made in euros, approximately within a month after the borrower has documented the intended use of the funds and the EBRD has verified the documents.
The average amount of loans under the program is expected to be the hryvnia equivalent of EUR 300 thousand, but the amount of each loan is determined by the details of the investment project, which must be acceptable to the EBRD. The minimum loan term is 24 months and the maximum is 60 months. The loan is secured by a pledge of the purchased equipment, a financial guarantee of the borrower’s owners and additional collateral if necessary. The loan agreement is implemented under the EBRD’s risk-sharing program, so the project to be financed must also meet its criteria.
OTP Bank offers loans with such unique cost compensation to its clients with no more than 249 employees and annual revenues not exceeding the equivalent of EUR 50 million or the currency of the annual balance sheet not exceeding the equivalent of EUR 43 million in UAH equivalent.
The borrower company must have been operating in the Ukrainian market for at least 3 years and meet other requirements set by OTP Bank and the EBRD, including a positive credit history.
The state budget of Ukraine received $5 billion in external financing in December, which is twice as much as the previous month, with more than 11% of the total financial assistance coming from grants on non-refundable terms, the press service of the Ministry of Finance reported on Wednesday.
“The attracted international assistance is used to finance priority social expenditures of the state budget, in particular, to pay salaries of employees of the education and healthcare sectors, humanitarian needs, as well as to ensure social protection of the population,” the release said.
According to the agency, the donors in December 2023 were Japan – $2.2 billion (concessional financing and grants), the EU – $1.6 billion (concessional financing), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – approximately $900 million (concessional financing), Norway – $190 million (grant), Germany – $55 million (grant), the United States – $50 million (grant), Switzerland – $20 million (grant) and the World Bank (WB) – $8 million (concessional financing).
It is specified that Japan has provided funding in the form of two grants: one for $180 million under the WB’s Emergency Project for Inclusive Support for Ukraine’s Agricultural Recovery (ARISE) and $52.4 million through the WB’s Housing and Opportunities for People’s Empowerment (HOPE) project.
Japan also financed loans for two WB projects: $1.09 billion for the Public Expenditure Support for Sustainable Governance in Ukraine (PEACE in Ukraine) and $900 million for the Investing in Social Protection for Improved Coverage, Resilience, and Efficiency (INSPIRE) project.
“EU funds in the amount of EUR 1.5 billion are the last tranche of a large-scale macro-financial assistance program (MFA+) of EUR 18 billion for 2023,” the Ministry of Finance emphasized.
As the Ministry reminded, the IMF provided Ukraine with financing worth about $900 million (SDR 663.9 million) as a result of the successful second review of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program by the IMF Executive Board.
At the same time, the grants from Norway, the United States, and Switzerland are part of the sixth additional financing under the PEACE in Ukraine project. In turn, a EUR 50 million grant from the German State Development Bank (KfW) was attracted under the state support program “Affordable Loans 5-7-9%”.
The Ministry of Finance clarified that the concessional financing from the WB in the amount of $8 million is additional funding for the project “Improving Healthcare at the Service of People”.
As reported, in November this year, the Ministry of Finance attracted about $2 billion to the state budget of Ukraine, and in October – $2.8 billion. In total, over 12 months of 2023, Ukraine received about $42.4 billion in external financing for the urgent needs of the state budget.
Impact of electricity deficit on real GDP vs no deficit, % (forecast up to 2024)
Source: Open4Business.com.ua and experts.news
Astarta Agroholding, Ukraine’s largest sugar producer, has raised up to $60m in a loan from state-owned Oschadbank for the construction of a soybean processing plant in the Poltava region.
“The raised funds will be used to finance an investment project to build a new soybean processing plant in Globino (Poltava region) to produce soy protein concentrate,” the company said on its website on Tuesday.
It is specified that the credit limit of $60 mln is granted to the agricultural holding for seven years.
As reported, the director of business development and investor relations of the group of companies Julia Bereshchenko at the conference-call with investors and analysts on the results of the company’s work for the first nine months of 2023 informed that investments for the construction of the plant will be distributed for three years – the current and two subsequent years. “Astarta intends to finance the project primarily through free cash flow. The Globino plant is expected to produce up to 100,000 tons of concentrated soy protein per year.
“Astarta” announced the start of construction of this line in mid-September 2021. The GPP itself was commissioned in early 2014, with a design processing capacity of 230 thousand tons per year. The plant is capable of producing about 160,000 tons of high-protein soybean meal, 40,000 tons of soybean oil and 9,000 tons of pelletized shell annually. The plant also includes finished product storage facilities and a 42,000-ton elevator and the necessary utilities, roads and railroads. Before the war, more than 80% of the GPP’s production was supplied to the EU, Middle and Far East countries. The main part of soybeans for processing is grown by agrofirms of the agroholding.
In the fall of 2021, Bereshchenko pointed out that the construction of an additional soybean deep processing line at GPP will double EBITDA in the soybean segment, as well as increase revenue.
“Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding company operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It includes six sugar mills, agricultural farms with a land bank of 220,000 hectares and dairy farms with 22,000 cattle, an oil extraction plant in Globino (Poltava region), seven elevators and a biogas complex.
The agroholding earned EUR1.24 mln of net profit in the third quarter of 2023, which is 27.7 times less than in the same period of 2022. Astarta’s revenue decreased by 14.4% to EUR104.75m, gross profit decreased by 2.7 times to EUR26.96m, operating profit decreased by 7.6 times to EUR6.79m, and EBITDA decreased by 42.7% to EUR97.25m.
Thanks to a significantly better performance in the first half of this year compared to the first half of last year, for the first nine months of 2023 as a whole, net profit decreased by 9.8% to EUR55.97m on revenue growth of 14.8% to EUR392.00m. The company’s gross profit increased by 3.0% to EUR151.91m, while operating profit decreased by 15.9% to EUR79.91m and EBITDA by 10.8% to EUR116.63m.
