Charitable Foundation (CF) “MHP-Gromade” launched a program to help small businesses in 11 regions of the country, as a result of the competitive selection of business plans, entrepreneurs will be able to receive 50-100 thousand UAH for the implementation of their start-ups.
Representatives of the MHP-Gromade charitable foundation, which is part of the MHP agricultural holding, announced the launch of the corresponding competition during a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Monday.
It is specified that this project is being implemented annually, however, in the context of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the fund plans to focus on grants for internally displaced persons, military personnel and their relatives, as well as people who have lost their homes due to the Russian invasion.
“For the first time, MHP launched this competition in 2016. During this time, 250 business ideas worth over UAH 11 million were supported. In 2021, this project was implemented by MHP-Gromade in partnership with the United Nations Development Program in the country and with the support of the Government of Sweden “, – said the director of the BF Tatyana Volochay.
According to her, in 2022 the competition is held in 11 regions of the country – Vinnitsa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Lviv, Cherkasy, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Khmelnytsky, Chernihiv, Sumy and Volyn regions.
Representatives of the fund will rob the most viable startups twice a month and issue grants to their authors for the implementation of the project.
The implementation of this project will contribute to the development of the Ukrainian economy, replenish the state budget and help the Ukrainian army, form a business asset in small towns and villages, and motivate the growth of entrepreneurship.
MHP is the largest chicken producer in Ukraine. It is also engaged in the production of cereals, sunflower oil, meat processing products. On the European market, MHP supplies chilled half-carcasses of chickens, which are processed, including at its enterprises in the Netherlands and Slovakia. In February 2019, the agricultural holding completed the acquisition of the Slovenian company Perutnina Ptuj.
MHP generated $393 million in net profit in 2021 against a net loss of $133 million in 2020, while its revenue grew by 25% to $2.37 billion.
The founder, majority shareholder and head of the board of MHP is Ukrainian businessman Yuriy Kosyuk.
The state-owned enterprise NNEGC Energoatom has raised a UAH 1.5 billion loan from Ukreximbank (Kyiv) to purchase fresh nuclear fuel from Westinghouse in 2022.
“The borrowed funds will make it possible to increase the purchase of American fuel and ensure the efficient operation of power units of Ukrainian nuclear power plants after the rejection of Russian nuclear fuel,” the NAEC said in a statement.
As reported, Energoatom, at the beginning of a full-scale Russian military aggression, announced a complete refusal to purchase Russian-made nuclear fuel.
Energoatom is the operator of all four operating nuclear power plants in Ukraine. Operates Zaporozhye, South-Ukrainian, Rivne and Khmelnytsky stations with 15 power units equipped with water-cooled power reactors, with a total installed electric capacity of 13.8 GW.
Passengers of Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) can now send their cars from Kyiv to Uzhgorod and back by train No. 29/30 Kyiv – Uzhgorod, UZ reports in its Telegram channel.
It is noted that the cost of transportation is about UAH 1.4 thousand per ton of weight. You can arrange transportation of a car at the box office of the stations.
In addition, it is reported that car carriers are already running on the routes Kyiv – Lvov – Kyiv, Dnepr – Lvov – Dnepr, Kharkiv – Lvov – Kharkiv and Lvov – Odessa – Lviv.
According to the company, UZ has already transported 1,863 vehicles by car carriers during the war.
Passenger flow through the western border of Ukraine in apr 2022, thousand (graphically)
Data: State Border Service
Warsaw intends to propose Ukraine for entry into the International Energy Agency (IEA) at the organization’s next meeting in Paris, Polish Minister of Climate and Environment Anna Moskwa said in an interview with BiznesAlert.
“Poland wants to represent Ukraine to the International Energy Agency at the next meeting in Paris. To begin with, we would like to announce it as an observer. We already have the support of the head of the IEA,” she said.
She noted that Poland is currently negotiating the import of electricity from Ukraine.
The minister also said that the republic continues to supply oil products to Ukraine, but already on a commercial basis.
“At the beginning of the war and after the bombing of the refinery, we sent fuel free of charge. At present, these are commercial deliveries of Orlen, which require large logistics costs,” the minister said.
The IEA was created by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries in 1974 to help coordinate a collective response to severe oil supply disruptions.
The participating states are the United States, UK, Australia, Austria, Japan, South Korea, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Turkey. The associate members of the IEA are Argentina, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand.
Ukraine is completing consultations with the European Commission on its involvement in the international environmental program LIVE, launched in 1992, with a budget for 2021-2027 of more than EUR5.5 billion, Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ruslan Strilets said.
“We are completing consultations on Ukraine’s accession to LIVE, and I am sure that within a few weeks, maybe a month, we will invite the European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius to Ukraine to finalize our agreements and join the modern financial instrument with a budget of 5.5 billion euros,” Strilec said on the air of the nationwide telethon “UA Together” on Monday.
The Minister noted that at the opening of the ongoing European Green Week, Sinkevičius urged the Europeans to pay close attention to the issue of involving Ukraine in the LIVE program.
“The attitude of the European Commissioner towards Ukraine is so warm that he clearly said that we should pay attention to the restoration of Ukraine under the LIVE program. This gives me confidence that we will soon receive concrete funds for the implementation of specific projects,” the minister described the situation.
He added that Ukraine has applied to the relevant department of the European Commission with a request to help in the quality preparation of the projects that it will submit.
In addition, Strylets specified that in Ukraine about 200 specialists of the Ecological Safety working group of the National Council for the Reconstruction of Ukraine under the head of state are working on such projects.
According to him, the implementation of projects within the framework of the LIVE program can become an effective method of overcoming the consequences of the military actions of the Russian Federation, in particular, in the direction of restoring the environment and preserving biodiversity.
He added that the program finances innovative projects very quickly.
According to the minister, in Ukraine, due to the aggression of the Russian Federation, about 20% of the area of all protected areas is under the threat of destruction, and the fighting has engulfed 12 national parks and reserves.
“About 3,000 hectares of forests have been damaged by shelling, on the territory of more than 500,000 hectares, hostilities are still ongoing. The situation is difficult in the Kherson region, where more than 4,000 hectares of forests have been destroyed by fire,” Sagittarius cited examples.
He noted that Ukraine is doing its best to calculate all the losses caused by the Russian Federation and make claims “either in the form of claims to international courts, or in the general basket of reparations.”
As previously reported, Strilets noted that Ukraine recorded approximately more than 100 cases of ecocide caused by shelling and seizure of territories by Russian troops.
According to him, on the basis of the State Ecological Inspectorate, there is an appropriate headquarters, the purpose of which is to record such crimes, including the calculation of losses. The Ministry of Natural Resources is also preparing an update of the Ecosystem electronic platform launched before the war, which will record all cases of environmental damage and open information on the preliminary extent of damage in order to subsequently create a common database.
