From December 13 to 19, 2023, the European Film Festival 2023 (EUFF) will be held in Ukraine. The festival is organized by the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine together with the European cultural institutions Goethe-Institut, Institut Français and Cineuropa.
This year’s festival will showcase the outstanding achievements of European cinema and introduce the contemporary cinema of Ukraine. EUFF 2023 will bring together nine films that have won international competitions. You can watch them for free on the festival’s online platform.
To join EUFF 2023, you need to:
Register at eurofest.org.ua;
Rent and watch a movie for free at a convenient time from December 13 to 19.
The EUFF 2023 program includes such films as Luxembourg, Luxembourg (Ukraine), Anytime (Finland), My Love Affair with Marriage (Latvia, Luxembourg), The Gods of Molenbeek (Finland, Belgium, Germany), “Luzza (Malta), Oscar and Lilly – Where No One Knows Us (Austria), Date with Amber (Ireland, UK), I’m Fine (Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, Italy), Lullaby (Spain). The full program and film descriptions are available on the EUFF website.
“EUFF is an international project that promotes cultural exchange between EU countries and Ukraine. Our common vector of development is reflected in this year’s festival program. It includes both European works and, for the first time, a Ukrainian film. And this is a sign of deepening the dialogue and strengthening the partnership between Europe and Ukraine,” the EU Delegation to Ukraine said.
Organizer: Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine.
Partners: Goethe-Institut, Institut Français, Cineuropa.
Media partners: Mind.ua, Bit.ua.
Technical partners: Festival Scope, SHIFT27.
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For reference:
The EU Delegation to Ukraine has the status of a diplomatic mission and is one of more than 130 EU delegations in the world. The European Film Festival is a global cultural project implemented by the EU Delegations around the world to promote European values and raise awareness of pressing European challenges. The goal of the festival in Ukraine is to introduce Ukrainians to Europe and its culture through cinema.
In January-September 2023, Dnipro Aggregate Plant JSC (DAP, Dnipro) increased its net income from sales by 72% compared to the same period in 2022, to almost UAH 235.6 million.
According to the company’s published interim reports in the NSSMC disclosure system, its net profit more than doubled to UAH 69.4 million.
The plant earned UAH 100.16 million in operating profit in the reporting period (up twofold), while gross profit amounted to UAH 131.15 million (+39.6%).
As reported, in the first half of this year, DAO increased its net profit by 8.3% to UAH 33.83 million, while net revenue grew by 46% to almost UAH 132 million.
Thus, in the third quarter of 2023, net profit increased 15.3 times year-on-year to UAH 35.6 million, and net income increased 2.2 times to UAH 103.6 million.
At the same time, the report notes that Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine remains the main risk factor, “which continues to affect inflationary processes, which is reflected in rising prices for materials, equipment and energy resources, reducing the possibility of cash flow in case of an increase in the need for them.”
At the same time, the document says, SAZ is taking steps to increase return on equity by optimizing the structure of debt and equity to ensure business continuity.
According to the company’s previously announced plans, one of the key factors for its development in 2023 is to expand its order book by 1.5 times by 2022.
DAZ is an enterprise with many years of experience in manufacturing aircraft products, as well as hydraulic equipment for mines and general engineering products (fuel and other liquid pumps).
Most of its products are sold in Ukraine, but in recent years, supplies to the EU have increased significantly.
As reported, in 2022, the plant earned UAH 36.72 million in net profit, up 15.6% year-on-year, with net income up 1.4% to UAH 175.56 million.
German arms maker Rheinmetall AG wants to build its first armored vehicles in Ukraine next year, the concern’s chief executive officer Armin Papperger said, Reuters reports.
According to Papperger, he expects an agreement with Ukraine to build Fuchs armored transport vehicles, named after the German word for fox, and Lynx infantry fighting vehicles to be signed by early next year.
“After signing the contract, we want to finish the first Fuchs within six to seven months, and the first Lynx within 12 to 13 months,” he said.
It is noted that in October, Ukraine announced the creation of a joint defense venture with Rheinmetall AG to help in the local production of some key types of equipment, as well as to maintain and repair Western weapons sent to Kyiv against a full-scale Russian invasion.
According to Reuters, Ukrainian officials hope that cooperation with Western arms manufacturers will help revive the domestic arms industry, which suffered from inefficiency and lack of transparency for years before Russia’s invasion.
More than 19 thousand road accidents with injuries and deaths were recorded in Ukraine in ten months of 2023. The most common cause of road accidents is exceeding the safe speed limit. The number of accidents involving children has also increased significantly. Dnipropetrovska, Lvivska, and Kyivska oblasts are among the worst performers in terms of road accidents.
19,743 road accidents with fatalities and/or injuries occurred in Ukraine in 10 months of 2023. 2,492 people died as a result of these accidents, and another 24,774 were injured.
This is reported by Opendatabot, citing data from the Patrol Police Department.
The largest number of accidents with injuries and deaths was recorded in:
– Dnipropetrovska oblast – 1775
– Lviv region – 1697
– Kyiv region – 1631 accidents.
The most significant increase in road accidents with injuries and/or deaths was in Volyn – +39%. This is almost 1.4 times more than in the same period in 2021. The number of accidents also increased significantly in Chernivtsi (+27%) and Kirovohrad (+26%) regions. In contrast, accidents in Ternopil and Kharkiv regions decreased by 11% and 10%, respectively.
Top causes of road accidents in 2023
In the vast majority of cases – 38.5% – accidents occur due to speeding. The second most common cause of accidents in Ukraine is violation of maneuvering rules (22.5%). ⅔ of deaths in road accidents occur for these reasons.
In 2023, the number of accidents involving children increased significantly – by 10% compared to the same period in 2021.
At the same time, the number of accidents that, according to the Patrol Police, were caused by children increased by 1.5 times. This year, twice as many children have already died in such accidents and 2.3 times as many have been injured as in the same period in 2021.
Lviv region remains the anti-leader with 83 such accidents, while Kyiv and Vinnytsia regions show the highest growth – by 3.8 and 3 times, respectively.
Ovostar Union, one of the leading producers of eggs and egg products in Ukraine, earned $29.08 million in net profit in 9M2023, up 12.2 times year-on-year (y-o-y).
According to the group’s report on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, its revenue for the first nine months increased by 36.3% to $123.06 million, mainly due to higher prices for its products.
Gross profit for January-September this year increased by almost 2.8 times to $42.64 million, operating profit – by 8.2 times to $29.65 million.
It is noted that such an increase in profitability was also achieved by reducing the cost of sales from $66.16 million to $57.40 million due to good feed prices and the devaluation of the hryvnia.
The stability of national currencies also led to Ovostar’s total profit of $29.08 million in the first 9 months of this year, compared to a total loss of $25.16 million in the same period last year, when the hryvnia exchange rate fell.
The group also reported that its debt on bank loans since the beginning of the year has decreased from $10.93 million to $2.46 million, and is currently represented by a UAH 90 million loan from Credit Agricole Bank under the state program at a rate of 13.05% per annum with maturity at the end of March 2024, while the company has fully repaid its obligations to Ukrsibbank and OTP Bank.
Ovostar’s free cash flow jumped to $58.44 million from $12.17 million at the beginning of the year and $5.92 million a year earlier, including the equivalent of $19.77 million in hryvnia from $0.90 million, and $33.89 million in Latvia from $4.76 million.
According to the report, the share of egg sales in revenue slightly decreased to 69.0% from 69.5% in 9M2017, while the share of egg products increased from 30.5% to 31%. At the same time, the share of egg exports in total revenue increased from 34.9% to 45.5%, and the share of egg products exports increased from 56.6% to 60.3%.
As a result, Ovostar’s total export revenue for January-September this year reached 50% of total revenue, compared to 41.5% a year earlier.
The company, which had previously announced the suspension of its investment program amid the ongoing Russian military invasion of Ukraine and the overall unfavorable situation in the national economy, invested $8.88 million in 9M2017 against $5.42 million in 9M2016, with the lion’s share of all investments again in biological assets.
In mid-June 2011, the group’s holding company, Ovostar Union N.V., conducted an IPO of 25% of its shares on the WSE and raised $33.2 million. The majority stake of 67.93% is owned by Prime One Capital Limited, which is controlled by its CEO Boris Belikov and Chairman of the Board of Directors Vitaliy Veresenko.
In January-September of this year, Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited significantly increased its stake in Ovostar from 9.09% to 27.51% by withdrawing from the shareholders’ list Generali Otwarty Fundusz Emerytalny (10.93%) and AVIVA Otwarty Fundusz Emerytalny (5.02%).
As reported, Ovostar earned $6.09 million in net profit in 2022, which is 3.7 times more than in 2021. At the same time, revenue increased by 1.7% to $135.63 mln.
In the first half of 2023, the company earned $20.63 million in net profit, while the same period in 2022 ended with a net loss of $19.78 million. Its revenue for the six months increased by 56.8% to $88.69 million.
Bulgaria has authorized licensed imports of Ukrainian sunflower, rapeseed, corn and wheat, according to the website of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of Bulgaria.
According to the report, during an online meeting on Friday, the Ministers of Agriculture of Bulgaria and Ukraine Kirill Vatev and Nikolay Solsky agreed to implement a licensed export regime for sunflower, rapeseed, corn and wheat seeds and agreed on the details of its application.
“The Ministry of Agriculture and Food has kept its promise to limit imports of these agricultural products as much as possible until November 30, according to the Memorandum signed between the government and the Initiative Committee of Protesting Farmers,” the Bulgarian ministry quoted Minister Vatev as saying.
He emphasized that after this period, the two countries will “strictly monitor that there are no market distortions and that the interests of Bulgarian producers, processors and consumers are not undermined.”
Imports and data exchange between the two countries will continue, the Bulgarian ministry emphasized.
As reported, in November 2023, the Minister of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine Solsky expressed the opinion that Bulgaria, which refrained from imposing a unilateral ban after September 15, could become the first frontline country to lift the ban on Ukrainian agricultural products.
In his opinion, the crop that Bulgaria will be ready to import from Ukraine will be sunflower. In Bulgaria, in the fall of 2023, a compromise was reached between farmers and processors to open the market for imports of Ukrainian sunflower from December 1. By this time, local sunflower oil producers, according to the Bulgarian government, will have to buy back the sunflower seeds produced by farmers, and they will need an additional 1.5 million tons of raw materials.
Earlier, Stepan Kapshuk, head of the industry association Ukroliyaprom, told Interfax-Ukraine that Bulgaria has 16 oil extraction plants that have significantly increased production in the 2022 season and intend to develop sunflower oil exports using sunflower seeds imported from Ukraine.
On September 15, the European Commission announced that it would not extend the restrictions on imports of agricultural products from Ukraine to five neighboring EU countries (Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia) under certain conditions that will help avoid a new sharp increase in supplies.
The restrictions were introduced on May 2, 2023, and applied to imports of wheat, rapeseed, sunflower, and corn. These five Eastern European EU member states argued that Ukrainian agricultural products, when imported duty-free into the EU, were being deposited in their countries and were harming their local agricultural sectors.
After the restrictions were lifted, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia imposed unilateral bans. Poland expanded its list of banned products to include rapeseed cake and meal, as well as corn bran, wheat flour, and derivatives. Hungary extended the list to 24 commodity items.
Ukraine filed a lawsuit with the WTO, accusing Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia of discriminatory treatment of its agricultural products.
Ukraine is currently negotiating a mechanism for licensing exports of Ukrainian agricultural products with mandatory verification in each of the five countries.
