Ukraine ranks seventh in the world in terms of Internet traffic.
“Ukraine is actively developing traffic exchange points. For four years now, the country has ranked seventh and is ahead of many other states that are much larger than Ukraine,” Bill Woodcock, Executive Director of Packet Clearing House (PCH), said at the UADOM conference in Kyiv on Thursday .
He also noted that PCH has been cooperating with the UA domain registry by Hostmaster since 2004.
“During this time, best security practices have been introduced in the Ukrainian domain, and now Ukraine is among the 25 most developed countries in the world that use the most advanced security technologies,” the PCH executive director emphasized.
Packet Clearing House is an international non-profit organization responsible for providing operational support and security for critical Internet infrastructure, including Internet data exchange points and the core of the Domain Name System.
The “.UA” domain was delegated by the international organization IANA (later renamed ICANN) to Dmitry Kokhmanyuk and Igor Sviridov in 1992 in the interests of the entire Ukrainian Internet community. For a long time, the administration and development of the domain on a voluntary basis was carried out by specialists who united the Ukrainian Network Coordination Group (UA NCG) and created in 2001 a specialized enterprise Hostmaster LLC, which currently performs the functions of an administrator.
Zaporizhstal steelmaker Zaporizhstal in January-November this year decreased the output of rolled steel by 58.5% compared to the same period last year to 1 million 247.2 thousand tons.
According to the company’s information on Thursday, steel production fell by 60% to 1 million 420.5 tons over that period, and iron production decreased by 53.1% to 1 million 867.8 thousand tons.
In November this year, the company produced 143.9 thousand tons of iron, 85.8 thousand tons of steel, shipped 74.4 thousand tons of rolled steel, while in the previous month – 157 thousand tons of iron, 121.8 thousand tons of steel, shipped 101.3 thousand tons of rolled steel.
“The decline in production levels compared to the same period last year is due to the shortage of raw materials and logistical problems caused by full-scale military action in Ukraine. In addition, due to the ongoing missile attacks on the energy infrastructure and, as a consequence, the resulting shortage of capacity in the energy system, the plant reduced production, thus reducing the consumption of purchased electricity,” the press release explains.
As it was reported, in 2021 “Zaporizhstal” kept the output of rolled steel at the level of 2020 – 3.204 million tons, reduced steel production by 0.1% – to 3 million 778.25 thousand tons and increased the iron – by 0.1%, to 4 million 473.5 thousand tons.
“Zaporizhstal is one of the biggest industrial enterprises in Ukraine, which products are in great demand among domestic and foreign consumers. The plant specializes in high-quality carbon and low-alloy steel coils, hot-rolled plates, cold-rolled sheets, cold-rolled coils, as well as steel straps, tin plates, formed sections.
Main consumers are producers of welded pipes, enterprises of automotive, transport, agricultural engineering, producers of household appliances.
“Zaporizhstal is in the process of integration into Metinvest Group the main shareholders of which are CJSC “System Capital Management” (71.24%) and Smart Holding group of companies (23.76%).
Metinvest Holding LLC is the management company of Metinvest Group.
The group of companies, A.G.R. Group, of businessman Misak Khidiryan, with the start of a full-scale Russian invasion, reoriented logistics routes from Ukrainian seaports to the EU market through road and rail transport, as well as the river ports of Reni and Izmail.
As a representative of the grain trading department told Interfax-Ukraine, the company would continue to export part of its agricultural products through land border crossings with the EU and along the Danube River even after the occupied territories are liberated from Russian troops and Ukraine resumes full-fledged trade in the Black Sea.
According to him, after the start of the war, A.G.R. Group began searching for elevator capacities in the west of Ukraine and transporting crop stocks there from the central regions of the country. Later, A.G.R. Group established road and rail logistics channels for the selling of agricultural products in the EU, and also agreed to cooperate with a European trading company with a fairly strong infrastructure throughout Europe and begun to supply agricultural products to it.
“In addition, we agreed that we would work together to load their volumes and gave guarantees that after our victory and the liberation of the occupied territories, we will maintain our partnerships, even when ports open and maritime logistics again become a priority. Perhaps even consider with the board purchase of new clusters in western Ukraine for a more convenient partnership,” the representative of the holding told the agency.
According to him, at the moment, deep-water seaports are not available to the holding for export, so it uses road and rail transport, as well as the ports of Reni and Izmail. However, such logistics is much more expensive than maritime exports, and is also associated with a number of difficulties, such as the inability to leave Ukraine for drivers – its citizens, or long queues of ships in ports.
However, A.G.R. Group, in addition to the European direction, stepped up its activities in several countries of the Middle East – in Egypt and Turkey, where the company opened its representative offices.
“Our offices are operating there and domestic sales are running at maximum, as we need additional margin due to high logistics costs. We must clearly understand that the logistics leverage has increased, freight prices have increased, energy and fuel prices have risen, as a result of which we spend about $200 per tonne of exports, $200 on our product is a lot of money, we used to spend $45-50 per tonne,” the source said.
In the agricultural holding A.G.R. Group includes 20 companies. The main direction of its activity is the trade in agricultural products, the cultivation and storage of grain crops, as well as animal husbandry.
A.G.R. Group cultivates land in Poltava, Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions. All grown products are sold on foreign markets.
The holding’s president and head of its supervisory board is businessman Misak Khidiryan.
Italy plans to introduce 26% tax on profit from cryptocurrencies. The government will charge tax if the profit exceeds 2 thousand euros.
Taxpayers have already received letters demanding to indicate the value of their crypto-assets as of January 1, 2023 in the declaration and pay a tax of 14%.
Equity markets in the Asia-Pacific region are rising in trading Thursday, following a significant rise in U.S. stock indices.
Investors are assessing the speech of Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell.
He said the U.S. central bank could slow the pace of interest rate hikes following its December meeting. “The time to moderate the pace of rate hikes may come as early as the next meeting,” Powell said during a speech at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday.
In doing so, the Fed chief tried to balance those words with “hawkish” signals, Market Watch notes. Among other things, he said that the final peak in rates should be higher than might have been expected months ago.
In addition, Powell made it clear that the question of a rate cut is irrelevant at this point. “History strongly cautions us against premature policy easing,” he said.
The news from China also had a positive effect on bidders’ sentiment.
Authorities in Guangzhou have lifted restrictions imposed in several areas to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Strict lockdown was in force for several weeks in the city with a population of more than 18 million people, businesses were closed and strict quarantine measures were in place for those who were sick and in contact with them.
China’s Shanghai Composite index was up 0.7 percent by 7:26 a.m. Ksk, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 1.45 percent.
Shares in Shenzhou International Group, which makes and sells knitwear, rose 9 percent, the jewelry chain Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd. – by 6.6% and the Internet company Baidu by 5%.
In addition, retailers Alibaba and JD.com Inc. – rose by 4.3% and 1.5%, respectively, telecoms China Unicom and China Telecom – by 4.6% and 2.2%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1.1% by 8:21 a.m. Ksk.
Among the index components, pharmaceutical Eisai (+4.7%), chipmaker Advantest (+4.3%) and cosmetics maker Shiseido (+4.1%) were the biggest gainers.
Moreover, SoftBank Group (+1.8%), Sony (+0.9%) and Fast Retailing (+2.8%) gained their share prices.
South Korea’s Kospi Index was up 0.3% by 8:21 a.m. Ksk.
One of the world’s biggest chip and electronics maker Samsung Electronics Co. gained 0.5% and automaker Hyundai Motor rose 0.9%.
South Korea’s economy grew 3.1 percent in the third quarter of 2022 compared with the same period last year, final data from the Bank of Korea showed. Compared to the second quarter, GDP increased by 0.3%, which was the smallest rate of increase for the year.
The dynamics of both indicators matched both the previously announced data and analysts’ forecasts.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index added nearly 1% in trading Thursday.
Share prices of the world’s largest mining companies BHP and Rio Tinto rose by 2.1% and 3.3%, respectively.
Number of dwellings in residential buildings, putting into service, by type by region in Jan-June 2022
Data: State Statistics Service of Ukraine
