American business has every opportunity to take leading positions in restoring Ukraine’s economy and infrastructure right now, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address to members of the National Association of US Manufacturers.
As the head of state noted, participation in the reconstruction of Ukraine after the hostilities will give an extraordinary moral advantage to all businesses. At the same time, according to him, businesses that help in one way or another the Russian tyranny, will not be able to avoid problems and reputational crisis.
“American business is well positioned to take the lead in both rebuilding the Ukrainian economy and infrastructure and in showing the world that it is human nature to serve precisely worthy ends, and that this gives and always will give the greatest result. Ukrainian life after this war will inevitably get a fresh start,” Zelensky said.
He stressed that Ukraine now needs to restore hundreds of industrial, infrastructure and social facilities, residential buildings.
“Entire cities, industries, productions. This is a colossal task. But realistic. Ukraine is interested in projects to create a full production cycle in titanium, lithium, aluminum production, ferrous metallurgy … We need to rebuild the economy and energy on new security principles. It is in Ukraine that we will combine green transformation with security transformation and set an example for the same transformation in other countries”, Zelensky said.
He also said that mechanical engineering, agro-processing, weapons production, including modern drones, IT, transportation and infrastructure, localization of business in Ukraine and convenient logistics to other markets from Ukraine, and human capital “are not just investment opportunities and growth, but a wide space for American victories.”
“I urge you to prepare for these victories now and come to Ukraine now so that when we return the world, your hard work will already be producing results,” the president concluded.
The National Association of Manufacturers is one of the largest associations of manufacturers in the American business world which represents large and small manufacturers from all branches of industry in all 50 states of the United States. The association now has about 14,000 members.
Carpathian Mineral Waters Group of Companies (KMW), one of the major players on the Ukrainian market, plans to build another plant in the Lviv region with production capacity at the first stage of 230 million bottles of water per year, the head of the Lviv Regional Military Administration Maxim Kozitsky said in a telegram on Tuesday.
“Preliminarily, construction will begin as early as this spring. Construction of the first start-up complex will be completed in the spring of 2024,” he wrote after a meeting with representatives of KMV.
According to him, the group has already finished the preparatory documentary procedures for the construction of the plant.
It is assumed that after the first start-up complex for 230 million bottles per year, three more start-up complexes will be built, 300 people will get a job, and the company will pay about 110 million hryvnias of taxes annually.
According to information on the company web-site it started its activity on the mineral water market in 1996 with bottling of the mineral natural table water under TM “Karpatska Dzherelna” and in June 2002 it was reorganized into mineral water and non-alcoholic drinks production plant “Karpatskie Mineralni Voda”. In 2002 the production of sweet carbonated beverages under Fruktova Dzherelna TM and Sokovinka TM was launched, and in 2016 – energy drink under Dragon TM.
In 2019-2020, Karpatskie Mineralnye Vyody LLC’s annual revenues slightly exceeded UAH 100 million with net profits of UAH 33 million and UAH 14 million, respectively. For the 9 months of 2021 the revenue was 87.6 million UAH with a net profit of 21 million UAH.
Commissioning of housing in Ukraine in 2022 decreased by 37.8% compared with 2021 – to 7 million 110.2 thousand square meters, the State Statistics Service said.
According to the report, 4 million 752 thousand square meters. m housing (66.8% of the total volume) was commissioned in urban areas in 2022, 2 million 357 thousand square meters. m in rural areas. However, 39.1% of the total volume of housing was commissioned in one-family houses, 60.7% – in houses with two or more apartments, less than 0.1% – in dormitories.
A total of 92.5 thousand apartments were commissioned last year, which is 38.9% less than in 2021. In this regard, 68.9 thousand apartments were commissioned in the cities, while 23.6 thousand apartments – in the villages.
Following the results in 2022 the most housing was commissioned in the Kiev (1 million 456.9 thousand square meters. m, 20.5% of the total volume), Lviv (720.5 thousand square meters. m, 10.1%), Odessa (694.3 thousand square meters. m, 9.8%), Ivano-Frankivsk (493.2 thousand square meters. m, 6.9%) and Vinnitsa (404.5 thousand square meters. m, 5.7%) regions and Kyiv (908 thousand square meters. m, 12.8%).
According to statistical data, an increase in the volume of housing to the previous year was recorded in Vinnitsa (10.6 percentage points), Chernigov (7 percentage points, to 102.9 thousand square meters. m) and Poltava regions (47.9 percentage points, to 235.9 thousand square meters). The remaining Oblasts demonstrated a decrease in the volume of commissioned housing.
The data includes housing commissioned under the temporary procedure for commissioning houses built without a permit for construction work, as well as excluding the temporarily occupied territory of the Crimea and Sevastopol and parts of the temporarily occupied territories in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, reminds the State Statistics Service.
Detectives of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine (BES) initiated the seizure of more than 450 cars and vans one of the largest distributors of tobacco products in the country, property seized to ensure the compensation of damages of 270 million, caused to the state, the illegal activities of the company.
As reported on the Facebook page of the agency on Tuesday, officials of the said company in 2020-2021 documented the sale of tobacco products for a number of companies with signs of fictitiousness.
“The total value of excisable goods sold is 1.17 billion UAH. In fact, there was no sale of tobacco products to these companies. In fact the sales were made out of accounting for cash, including through a network of retail stores. Accordingly, the company did not reflect such business transactions in the company’s accounting and financial statements in order to conceal them,” the BEB report says.
The department underlined that by means of such transactions the tobacco products distributor intentionally avoided paying income tax and excise tax, which caused the actual non-payment of more than UAH 270 mln to the state budget.
In addition, the BEB found that the company owns more than 450 cars that were probably acquired illegally as a result of deliberate tax evasion and were used to transport the mentioned tobacco products.
“In order to preserve physical evidence and prevent unlawful acts with the vehicles, and to further ensure compensation for damages caused to the state, BEB detectives filed a motion to seize the distributor’s movable property, which the court granted,” the Bureau said in a statement.
Earlier, on January 16, the law enforcers informed that the general director of the largest tobacco products distributor in Ukraine is suspected of deliberate tax evasion without giving any other information about the distributor.
On the same day, the distribution company “Tedis Ukraine” said that it considers groundless and in no way legally unfounded suspicion of its general director Taras Korniyachenko in evasion of income tax and excise tax totaling more than 270 million UAH. Thus, “Tedis Ukraine” confirmed that the suspicion of the Office of the Prosecutor General was brought against it.
As reported, the Office of the Attorney General in January notified the CEO of the company – the largest distributor of tobacco products in suspicion of deliberate tax evasion. According to the prosecutor’s office, during 2020 and the first half of 2021, the company documented the sale of tobacco products to three companies with signs of fictitiousness in the total amount of 1.17 billion UAH, while the actual sale of products did not take place. Subsequently these companies with signs of fictitiousness in the tax records documented the sale of other goods – meat products and fuel.
Thus, the head of the tobacco company is accused of deliberate evasion of state budget profit tax and excise tax totaling more than 270 million UAH.
In turn, Tedis stated on its website that the criminal case initiated against its CEO concerns a number of business entities with which the company had financial and economic transactions in 2020. As part of the said case, the BEB requested documents from the company confirming financial and economic relations with counterparties, which Tedis provided.
“It should be noted that at the end of 2021, the Southern Department of the Office of large payers of the State Tax Service of Ukraine conducted a planned tax audit of the company’s compliance with tax and budget legislation for the period 2017-2020. Within the framework of the tax audit, there were no claims/comments on the relationship between the company and its counterparties, including those involved in the criminal case,” the distributor said in an official statement.
“Tedis Ukraine” is one of the largest Ukrainian distribution companies with a regional network of 32 structural units and about 45 thousand retail outlets. The company had 2,300 employees before the full-scale Russian invasion.
PJSC SUMYKHIMPROM has started the step-by-step restoration after the forced stop of the enterprise activity last year, which lasted almost half a year after shells hit the territory of the plant and damaged some objects.
“We have completed the restoration works, overhauls and in April we will start up the basic shops of the plant. The whole technological cycle will be started,” Vladimir Volkov, the executive director of the plant, said at the meeting of the Union of Chemists of Ukraine.
According to his words it is planned to load in full the workshops on production of mineral fertilizers, pigments and sulfuric acid production.
“Already in April our capacities will be able to produce 20-25 thousand tons of fertilizers per month with step-by-step increase up to 35 thousand tons per month, about 1800 tons of titanium dioxide and 35-40 tons of sulfuric acid per month”, – said the director.
He noted that a significant package of orders has already been formed for the coming months.
“We have to fulfill the production plan to produce more than 200 thousand tons of complex fertilizers within half a year,” Volkov stressed, noting that in-house production allows to reduce the risks of import supplies during the war.
The head of Sumykhimprom specified that the production program of fertilizers is adjusted to the demand of Ukrainian agrarians.
“We will produce the entire classic range of highly effective granulated NPK and NP fertilizers containing all the main nutrients. We can produce fertilizers with specified standard properties in full accordance with customer needs,” Volkov emphasized.
“Sumykhimprom” is one of the largest domestic enterprises producing complex mineral fertilizers, titanium dioxide, sulfuric acid and other types of inorganic chemistry. The enterprise is one of three budget forming enterprises of Sumy and Sumy region and produces more than 30 grades of NPK-fertilizers with different ratios of nutrients for different soil and climate zones.
Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Matthias Korman has announced the opening of the OECD Office in Ukraine (Kyiv) on March 1.
“I can confirm that starting tomorrow, the official Office of our representative office in Kiev will open,” Korman said at a joint briefing with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal in Kiev on Tuesday.
The Secretary General thanked the Embassy of Slovakia for providing the premises for the Office.
He also thanked Poland, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia for financially supporting the creation of this Office.
“Our Office staff will work with your government to develop a program for Ukraine within the OECD so that we can help you achieve all the priorities that are set in your government’s reform program according to OECD standards and principles as a future member of this organization,” Korman said.
