Oil prices are showing moderate growth on Monday morning after a sharp decline last week.
The cost of May futures for Brent on the London ICE Futures exchange at 7:02 a.m. is $83.11 per barrel, which is $0.33 (0.4%) higher than the price at the close of the previous session. As a result of trading last Friday, these contracts rose by $1.19 (1.5%) to $82.78 per barrel.
The price of WTI futures for April in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) is currently $77.01 per barrel, which is $0.33 (0.43%) higher than the final value of the previous session. Last Friday, the contract rose in price by $0.96 (1.3%) to $76.68 per barrel.
At the end of last week, Brent fell by 3.6%, WTI – by 3.8%.
The main negative factor for the oil market last week was the fear of a more aggressive monetary policy of the Federal Reserve. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that the central bank would have to raise rates more than previously expected to fight inflation.
In addition, on Friday it became known that the American bank Silicon Valley Bank came under the control of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The FDIC will sell the assets of Silicon Valley Bank, which will allow it to make payments on uninsured deposits.
“Fears of further tightening of the SAR and risks in the financial industry have raised concerns about demand,” said Charu Chanana, market strategist at Saxo Capital Markets Pte. Charu Chanana, a market strategist at Saxo Capital Markets Pte.
Meanwhile, the number of operating oil rigs in the United States last week decreased by 2 units to 590, according to oilfield services company Baker Hughes. The number of rigs declined for the fourth week in a row, updating the lowest level since June last year.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has included Credit Agricole Bank into the list of systemically important banks following its annual review, thus increasing the number of banks on the list to 15.
As stated in the NBU`s resolution No.95 “On Determination of Systemically Important Banks” dated March 8, it also includes A-Bank, Credobank, OTP Bank, Oschadbank, Pivdenniy Bank, PrivatBank, PUMB, and Raiffeisen Bank.
Sens Bank, TAScombank, Ukrgasbank, Ukreximbank, Ukrsibbank, and Universal Bank (mono) are also on the list.
As of February 1, 2023, Credit Agricole Bank ranked 11th out of 67 operating banks by total assets (UAH 81.03 billion). At present, the number of operating banks has dropped to 65.
Mobile bank izibank, created on the basis of TAScombank, in March-April plans to start selling domestic government bonds, as well as to start “payment by installments,” said the founder and CEO of izibank Anna Tigipko to Interfax-Ukraine agency on the sidelines of the Digital lending conference in Kiev.
“We also launch military bonds. Even before the war we started working on investment products, but we wanted to make foreign shares first. But the regulator forbade this. So we decided to focus on the domestic market and firstly work on OVGZs: military and not only military, and provide this to the client,” Tigipko said.
She said that izibank, unlike a number of other similar projects, will provide the client with an opportunity to buy government bonds in the secondary market through the exchange.
Also, in March and April for the mass izibank customers will be available the installment service, functioning in beta-version, and the service “payment in installments. Tigipko refused to disclose the partners of the project, whose goods and services can be paid for in installments, promising to do so a few months after the final agreements are made.
According to the CEO, izibank resumed issuing retail loans from about September 2022 after the restoration of the main registries, although the requirements for borrowers have become stricter and “the funnel has narrowed. She noted that today 90% of the bank’s new customers are registered through Bank ID in the Diya app, whereas even relatively recently it was only 50%.
In this regard, izibank does not plan to resume the issuance of cards through bank branches, which was suspended due to the full-scale Russian invasion, as most of the bank’s customers design and use virtual bank cards. The physical card, if desired, is sent to the client by mail, said Tigipko.
At the end of last year, the total number of izibank customers was estimated at about 300 thousand
On February 14-17, 2023, the largest exhibition of organic products “Biofach” was held in Nuremberg, Germany. This year, Ukraine was represented by the largest National Pavilion in the history of participation in the event with a total area of 188 m2, the main organizers were the state institution “Office for Entrepreneurship and Export Development” and the national project Diia.Business. The list of exhibitors and the Catalog of Ukrainian Organic Exporters 2023 can be found here. Find out more on the website of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine about the opening of Biofach, the presentation of the National Pavilion of Ukraine, and the increase in organic exports to the EU and Switzerland by 13%.
We also invite you to familiarize yourself with the latest results of the survey of organic business in Ukraine, which was conducted by the Organic Initiative, an association of key participants in the organic sector of Ukraine, in January-February 2023.
Traditionally, on the first day of the Biofach exhibition, the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and IFOAM – Organics International presented the book “The World of Organic Agriculture. Statistics and New Trends 2023”, which presents data on the development of the global organic market for the year before last. The full version of the publication in English is available here.
In 2020, there was a significant increase in the consumption of organic products and many experts feared that in 2021 there would be a significant decrease in global sales. However, we see that, despite fears, consumption of organic products has increased, as has the number of organic producers, although the growth has slowed somewhat.
The global consumption of organic products in 2021 amounted to 124.8 billion euros (+4.2 billion euros compared to 2020). The United States remains the largest market for organic products, although sales here fell slightly, to 48.6 billion euros compared to 49.5 in 2020. The second largest market is Germany – 15.9 billion euros (+0.9 billion euros) and the third – France – 12.7 billion euros (unchanged).
We invite you to read more and use infographics and tables from the annual book “The World of Organic Agriculture. Statistics and New Trends 2023” (data as of 12/31/2021), which have been translated into Ukrainian:
– Organic Agriculture in the World
– Retail sales of organic products in the world
– Organic producers in the world
– Organic farmland in the world
– Organic agriculture in Europe
– Retail sales of organic products in Europe
– Organic farmland in Europe
– Organic agriculture in the EU
– Table “Organic agriculture: key indicators and leading countries”
– Table “Key indicators of organic production in Europe and the EU”
– Table “Legislation in the field of organic agriculture: current status by regions”
We are pleased to announce that in February 2023, the certification body Organic Standard LLC, in cooperation with the Organic Initiative and BrandStory, completed the joint project Organic’22, a rating of Ukrainian organic brands that, despite the difficult conditions, worked, developed and supplied their products to Ukrainian and even European supermarket chains.
Just like last year, the project was based on the ORGANIC’22 rating: TOP 15 Organic Brands of Ukraine.
We also developed ratings in three categories:
– Vitamins – all year round: TOP 5 producers of fresh products
– Strategic stock: TOP 5 brands of grocery products
– Happy Cow: TOP 3 producers of organic dairy products
They also continued to talk about baby food The best of the best: organic baby food!
And this year’s novelty is a selection of brands that produce snacks, which, by the way, have the prospect of taking a significant place on the shelves in European stores: Dietitian-approved: brands that make the right snacks
All publications are available in three languages: Ukrainian, English and French.
We invite you to share the organic ratings with your audience.
These events and materials were organized and developed/translated with the support of Switzerland within the framework of the Swiss-Ukrainian program “Higher Value Added Trade Development in the Organic and Dairy Sectors of Ukraine” (QFTP), implemented by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL, Switzerland) in partnership with SAFOSO AG (Switzerland), www.qftp.org.
Consumer price growth in Ukraine slowed to 0.7% in February 2023 from 0.8% in January, returning to the level of December last year, the State Statistics Service (Gosstat) said on Friday. According to its data, 1.6% inflation was recorded in February-2022, so in annual terms in February-2023 it fell to 24.9% from 26% in January and from 26.6% in December last year.
Core inflation in the past month fell to 0.5% from 0.7% in January and 0.8% in December 2022, the Gosstat said.
With core inflation at 1% in February 2022, year-over-year core inflation also fell to 22.7% in January from 23.3%, just above last year’s 22.6%.
In the consumer market in February, prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages have increased by 1.5%. Vegetables went up most of all (by 13.9%). Fruit, poultry, fish and fish products, bread, milk and dairy products, pasta and soft drinks rose by 1.4-0.4%. At the same time, processed cereal products, eggs, rice, bacon, beef, pork and sunflower oil went down in price by 2.3-0.4%.
The prices of alcoholic beverages and tobacco products rose by 1.1%, including tobacco products – by 1.4% and alcoholic beverages – by 0.9%.
Clothing and footwear fell in price by 3.2%, including clothing by 3.2% and footwear by 3.1%.
An increase in prices in the health sector by 0.8% was primarily due to a 1.6% increase in the cost of outpatient services and hospital services.
Transport prices fell by 1.7% due to the decline in fuel and lubricants by 5.3%, as well as train fares by 1.5%.
As it was reported in January, the National Bank of Ukraine improved its inflation forecast for this year from 20.8% to 18.7%, including down to 23.6% in the first quarter and to 18.7% in the first half of the year.
The government this week also reported that its inflation forecast for the current year has been lowered to 24% from 28%.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked power engineers for recovery work after Russian missile strikes and urged the population to actively participate in the program to exchange ordinary bulbs for LED lamps
“I want to separately thank for this week our power engineers, all the employees of the repair teams, local and central authorities, who were involved in the elimination of the consequences of the Russian terrorist strike on Thursday,” he said in a video message on Sunday.
According to him, “for today it was possible to restore the technical capabilities of electricity supply. Kharkiv – with light. Zhytomyr region – with electricity. All cities and communities where there were problems with power supply have been healed again.”
“I thank each and everyone who worked for this! By the way, our program of exchanging old bulbs for new LED-lamps is being actively implemented. In total, Ukrainians have already received 12 million LED-lamps. And if we talk about energy saving, this amount allows saving up to 600 megawatts of energy. Approximately it is, for example, more than half of the generation of the most powerful nuclear power plant unit, “- he said.
