Record price growth
In 2025, gold reached historic highs, exceeding $3,500 per ounce, which is 28% higher than at the beginning of the year. This growth is driven by global economic and political factors, including:
US trade tariffs: the introduction of 10% tariffs on imports caused economic uncertainty, stimulating demand for gold as a safe asset.
Central bank purchases: active accumulation of gold, especially by Asian countries, increased demand.
Political instability: conflicts and sanctions have prompted investors to seek stable assets.
Analysts predict further growth in gold prices:
Goldman Sachs: up to $3,700 by the end of 2025.
JP Morgan: may exceed $4,000 in the second quarter of 2026.
Gov Capital: in an optimistic scenario, up to $4,631 by December 2025.
The warehouses of the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” are waiting for the shipment of 100 thousand cubic meters of round timber, and the business has increased its debt to UAH 500 million for the products already delivered, the press service of the state enterprise reported.
The state-owned enterprise reminded that during recent meetings with business, there was a demand to increase harvesting, as there is a shortage of resources.
“But the facts show otherwise. Since the beginning of April, the hotline of the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” has not received a single complaint about the failure to fulfill timber supply contracts due to the fault of foresters (the only case concerns a conflict between entrepreneurs in the Carpathian region, which our employees became hostages). However, the volume of unselected products in the warehouses has increased significantly,” the statement said.
The Forests of Ukraine emphasized that there are a dozen companies among those who do not fulfill their obligations.
Business liability for breach of contract is now minimal. Buyers risk virtually nothing. With significant price fluctuations in the market, it is sometimes easier not to choose products under an open contract and re-enter the auction, the state enterprise explained.
However, due to the accumulation of timber products and reloading of warehouses, storage costs are increasing at the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine”. Late payment negatively affects the state of settlements with service providers (primarily for logging). The forced shutdown destabilizes the work of logging companies, and we lose scarce employees who are difficult to replace.
“Our company is working to solve the problem. We are increasing the share of long-term contracts. The situation is definitely normalizing. However, the issue of business responsibility must be taken into account in further discussions on increasing procurement. If we demand it, we must meet it,” the state-owned enterprise emphasized.
President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that he has spoken with US President Donald Trump about the peace process in Ukraine.
“We both agreed that the war should end as soon as possible to prevent further unnecessary deaths,” Ramaphosa wrote in X on Thursday following the meeting.
According to him, the two sides agreed to meet in the near future to discuss US-South Africa relations. “We also talked about the need to develop good relations between our two countries,” Ramaphosa added.
Cloud providers GigaCloud, De Novo and data center “Parkoviy” this week signed a memorandum on the establishment of a public union (PU) “Ukrainian Alliance of Digital Sovereignty”.
“The prerequisite for the association was the foreign policy instability, which has seriously affected the global technology market, as well as the digital and economic security of the country,” the union’s founders said in a release.
They call the main goal to ensure Ukraine’s digital sovereignty, by which they mean the transfer, storage and processing of important data, in particular government, medical, financial and defense data, within the country and in accordance with the requirements of current Ukrainian legislation.
“Because of the war, Ukraine is almost the only country in the world where state data is forced to be partially stored abroad. After the war is over, the issue of returning this data under Ukrainian jurisdiction will arise. Therefore, we are ready for a dialog with state authorities to develop a strategy for such a return,” the release says.
According to the organizers of the Union, technological solutions are becoming an instrument of political pressure from some countries on others.
“We as market players are focused on the national market, we have a mission not only to sell our services here, but also to protect the economy of the country, which is the environment for our business and our clients,” representatives of the newly formed alliance claim.
Among the declared areas of work – “technological revision” of the country, as well as the development of common standards for infrastructure solutions that will allow to build large geo-distributed infrastructure between the sites of national providers, easily and seamlessly transfer data between cloud environments of different providers without artificial technological obstacles, to guarantee the safety and security of user data even in critical situations, in particular in the case of enemy attacks, as well as to implement a policy of Data Embassy and the technology of the many,” said the representatives of the new alliance.
It is emphasized that other companies that share its principles, such as data centers, software companies and infrastructure providers, are welcome to join the Alliance.
cloud providers, GigaCloud, Ukrainian Digital Sovereignty Alliance
President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa called the visit of his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Pretoria “historic” as it was the first time the Ukrainian head of state had come to South Africa since the establishment of official diplomatic relations between the countries.
“This official working visit reflects our common desire to strengthen bilateral relations between our countries for the benefit of our peoples. This is in many ways a historic visit, because it is the first visit of a Ukrainian head of state to South Africa in 33 years since the establishment of official diplomatic relations between South Africa and Ukraine,” he said at a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Pretoria on Thursday.
According to Ramaphosa, he held “successful talks” with President Zelensky, during which the leaders exchanged views on how to strengthen and deepen bilateral relations between the two countries. They also discussed how ministers from both sides can work together to deepen and broaden these relations.
They also noted the growing interest in expanding relations in the areas of diplomacy, post-conflict reconstruction, development and empowerment of peoples, especially women.
“We also discussed opportunities for cooperation in areas such as agriculture, trade, education, infrastructure and energy, as well as other social issues,” the president added.
In addition, Ramaphosa noted the significant steps taken by Ukraine, and President Zelensky in particular, to expand relations with the African continent. These include the provision of grain in the food sector, the expansion of agricultural cooperation, and the opening of a grain hub to the port of Mombasa in Kenya.
According to him, today’s meeting provided an opportunity to discuss the common interest in promoting peace, security, stability and sustainable development on the continent, in Ukraine and around the world.
The management of the Central Bank of Uzbekistan discussed with representatives of Tencent Cloud International, a part of the Chinese holding Tencent Holdings Ltd, the issues of bilateral cooperation in the development of digital technologies and cloud infrastructure in the country, the press service of the regulator reports.
During the talks, the prospects of integrating Tencent’s WeChat Pay digital payment system with local payment systems of Uzbekistan, the possibility of making payments using QR codes, as well as expanding cooperation in this area were discussed, the statement said.
Following the meeting, the parties supported initiatives in the field of payment systems and agreed on future joint actions.
Miraziz Mirkhayotov, deputy director of the Central Bank’s payment systems department, told reporters that Chinese mobile payment services WeChat and Alipay (from Ant Group, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group) can be integrated with Uzbekistan’s national payment systems.
According to him, at the first stage, the parties are working to ensure that foreign tourists can make payments in Uzbekistan. At the second stage, similar work is planned to make payments by Uzbek residents in China through the republic’s payment systems Uzcard and Humo.
