The German and EU governments have financed the construction of six hospitals in Ukraine under the EU4ResilientRegions project, a Special Support Program for Ukraine co-financed by the European Union and the German government.
According to a press release from GIZ Ukraine, which is the general contractor for the projects funded by the German and EU governments, the clinics are located in Lviv, Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, and Chernihiv regions.
The first clinic, located in Lviv, started operating in September. By the end of the year, GIZ Ukraine will open five more.
The clinics will be opened on the basis of modular structures, which reduced the project implementation time to eight months.
The hospitals are equipped with modern medical and laboratory equipment, including functional diagnostics (ECG, EEG, ultrasound, etc.), laboratory tests, general practitioner’s office, ENT, ophthalmologist, gynecologist, surgeon, manipulation and consultation rooms, and physiotherapy.
The hospitals are equipped with autonomous 70 kW solar stations designed to ensure the uninterrupted operation of all available medical equipment in the modules (excluding heating needs), as well as 160 kW diesel generators with fuel reserve.
The first of the six facilities to be put into operation in September 2023 was the modular diagnostic center at St. Luke’s Hospital of the First Territorial Medical Association of Lviv. A Philips Ingenia Ambition S magnetic resonance imaging scanner was purchased for the center. Some of the equipment was placed in a modular structure, and some was installed in the existing hospital premises.
The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH supports the German government in achieving its goals in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development. Priority areas of cooperation between Germany and Ukraine include good governance, energy efficiency and climate, and sustainable economic development. Special attention is also paid to supporting Ukrainian communities that have hosted internally displaced persons.
Estimated number of population in regions of Ukraine based on number of active mobile sim cards (mln)
Source: Open4Business.com.ua and experts.news
CSD LAB Medical Laboratory (Kyiv) has opened new laboratory offices in Cherkasy and Mykolaiv.
As the laboratory reports on its website, in particular, a new laboratory office was opened in Cherkasy in cooperation with the Avicenna Medical Center. The list of available services of this CSD LAB laboratory office includes more than 1500 tests, including general clinical, biochemical, immunochemical, microbiological, cytological and pathomorphological tests, as well as comprehensive tests for adults and children.
In addition, CSD LAB has expanded its network in Mykolaiv by opening two partner laboratory offices together with ZDRAVO, a modern medicine clinic in Mykolaiv.
As reported, at the beginning of 2023, the CSD LAB network included 40 laboratory offices. By the end of 2024, CSD LAB plans to increase the number of offices to 100.
CSD LAB is one of the leading laboratories in Ukraine that provides more than 1500 tests: from a complete blood count to the determination of genetic disorders in a tumor using the NGS method. For 13 years, CSD LAB has been one of the largest pathology laboratories in Eastern Europe.
Benchmark oil prices are declining on Thursday morning after falling the day before on the news of the postponement of the OPEC+ ministerial meeting and a sharp rise in US stockpiles.
January futures for Brent on the London ICE Futures exchange by 7:06 a.m. fell by $0.98 (1.2%) to $80.98 per barrel. On Wednesday, these contracts dropped by $0.49 to $81.96 per barrel, and during the session reached $78.41 per barrel.
Quotations for January futures for WTI in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) by this time decreased by $0.83 (1.08%) to $76.27 per barrel. At the end of the previous session, they dropped by $0.67 to $77.1 per barrel, the intraday low was $73.79 per barrel.
Market activity was reduced due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States.
On Wednesday, it became known that the OPEC+ ministerial meeting was postponed from November 26 to November 30. The OPEC conference meeting previously scheduled for November 25 has also been postponed to November 30, the organization said.
Bloomberg reported that OPEC+, which had planned a meeting for this weekend, seems to have run into problems as Saudi Arabia expressed dissatisfaction with other member states over production levels.
According to unnamed delegates, as of Wednesday morning, it looked like the OPEC+ conference might be postponed indefinitely. Saudi Arabia, which has been cutting production by an additional 1 million barrels per day since July, was in difficult negotiations with other members over production levels, the delegates said, asking not to be identified because the talks were private.
According to Rystad Energy, in the absence of further production cuts, oil prices will remain around $80 per barrel next year.
The company notes that meetings of the OPEC+ Ministerial Committee have never been postponed for four days. However, an agreement on production cuts will be reached at the upcoming meeting, Rystad expects, while not ruling out the possibility of a deadlock in the negotiations.
Meanwhile, commercial oil stocks in the United States increased by 8.701 million barrels last week, according to the weekly report of the country’s Energy Ministry published the day before. Gasoline inventories for the week ended November 17 increased by 749 thousand barrels, while distillate stocks decreased by 1.018 million barrels.
Experts surveyed by Trading Economics expected an average increase in crude oil stocks by 1.16 million barrels, a decrease in gasoline stocks by 150 thousand barrels and a decrease in distillate stocks by 761 thousand barrels.
Inventories at the Cushing terminal, where NYMEX-traded crude is stored, increased by 858 thousand barrels over the week.
The Union of Dairy Enterprises of Ukraine (UDEP) and the Polish Dairy Chamber call on the governments of both countries to create conditions that would make it impossible to block the Ukrainian-Polish border.
“At a time when Ukraine is forming an outpost on the eastern borders of the European Union to expand the principles of democracy and free market, including with the active support of Poland, the governments of both countries should take the initiative and responsibility for creating conditions that would make such destructive situations impossible. If such situations do arise, the governments should promptly take the necessary measures to resolve them,” the dairy associations said in a statement published on the UMCU website on Wednesday.
According to the dairy associations, the blocking of transport at the border by some Polish organizations jeopardizes full-fledged trade relations between Ukraine and Poland.
The UMCU and the Polish Dairy Chamber emphasized the inadmissibility of extreme measures: if they become systemic, they pose a threat to the development of Ukrainian and Polish companies.
The appeal cites data from the State Customs Service of Ukraine, according to which in January-October 2023, Poland exported almost EUR 5.5 billion worth of goods to Ukraine, including EUR 160 million worth of dairy products.
Maintaining full-fledged trade relations between Ukraine and Poland is equally important for entrepreneurs in both countries, the dairy associations of Ukraine and Poland summarized.
According to Andriy Demchenko, a spokesman for the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, as of the morning of November 22, there were about 2,700 trucks on the Ukrainian-Polish border at three checkpoints – Yagodyn-Dorogusk, Krakovets-Korchova, and Rava-Ruska-Krebenne.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has threatened to block all EU aid to Ukraine, as well as the country’s future accession to the bloc, unless EU leaders agree to review their entire strategy for supporting Kyiv, according to a letter to European Council President Charles Michel, Politico reports.
In the letter, Orban said that no decisions on funding Ukraine, opening EU accession talks or further sanctions against Russia can be made until a “strategic discussion” takes place when leaders gather in Brussels in mid-December.
“The European Council should analyze the implementation and effectiveness of our current policy towards Ukraine, including the various assistance programs,” Orban wrote in the letter, which is undated but bears the stamp of his office.
He also questioned why Europe should continue to support Ukraine at a time when the United States, which has provided the bulk of military aid to Kyiv, may not be able to continue funding due to a party deadlock over further support.
“The European Council should have a frank and open discussion about the feasibility of the EU’s strategic goals in Ukraine. Do we think these goals are realistically achievable? Is this strategy sustainable without reliable support from the U.S.? Can we take continued U.S. support for granted? How do we envision the security architecture of Europe after the war,” the letter emphasizes.
Orban also added that “the European Council is not in a position to take key decisions on the proposed security guarantees or additional financial support for Ukraine, to approve further strengthening of the EU sanctions regime or to agree on the future of the enlargement process until a consensus is found on our future strategy towards Ukraine.”
As the newspaper notes, Orban’s letter raises the stakes in the ongoing standoff between Budapest and Brussels, which is withholding EUR13 billion in EU funds from Hungary over concerns that the country is violating EU standards in the area of the rule of law.
Without explicitly stating this, the letter suggests that Budapest may use its veto power to block the disbursement of planned EUR50 billion in aid to Ukraine – funds needed to finance the Ukrainian government while its armed forces fight a full-scale Russian invasion.
In addition to the EUR50 billion, Orban threatens to block the planned EUR500 million in military aid to Ukraine, as well as the start of formal negotiations on Kyiv’s accession to the 27-member union, which the leaders had hoped to approve at the next European Council meeting on December 14 and 15.
According to one EU diplomat, who was granted anonymity to discuss the confidential discussions, Orban “mined” the entire decision-making process on Ukraine as part of a strategy to pressure the European Commission to allocate EUR13 billion to Hungary. The diplomat noted that while in other cases Budapest abstained from voting on key issues and allowed the EU to impose sanctions on Russia, in this case “I don’t see this happening.”
“For Hungary, this is not a matter of neutrality. It is about leverage,” the diplomat said.
