The Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine considers it necessary to defend the rights of Ukraine, including by using the possibilities of the Association Agreement with the EU.
“We need to start using the Agreement with the EU as our opportunity to defend our rights in the European market. We signed the agreement not to be guilty all the time, but in order to get the right to enter the markets, to have equal rights with all European countries,” Deputy Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Mustafa-Masi Nayyem said during the Great Construction: Roads and Bridges forum in Kyiv on Friday.
According to him, the Association Agreement allows it to be revised in five years, as well as to sign additional agreements and protocols.
“In particular, Article 136 says that we can sign an additional agreement that will allow us to move to the transit liberalization. So that the countries with which we border cannot prohibit the delivery of our products to other EU countries. Yes, there can be a two-way relationship. But Poland, Hungary or Slovakia, for example, cannot prohibit us from delivering our products to Germany,” Nayyem said.
According to him, such actions by the EU countries are an artificial trade barrier and discrimination against Ukrainian carriers.
As reported, Ukraine plans to go to arbitration if Poland refuses to resolve the situation with the reduction of international haulage permits by the Polish side.
On December, 25, 26 and 27, 2021 Ancient Kyiv in the Principality of Kyivan Rus («Kyivan Rus Park») invites you to a grandiose celebration of Christmas according to the traditions of our ancestors.
Traditional folk festivities, horse-trick performances, an interactive musical with special effects, a Christmas nativity scene, the master-classes on carol singing, the New Year’s Residence, hot drinks and tasty dishes from fire, extreme rides – all of this and much more waits for young and adult guests in the real live medieval city.
Visiting Ancient Kyiv takes place in compliance with the requirements of the quarantine regime.
Ancient Kyiv opens at 10:00. The program starts at 13:30.
The ticket price: a full adult ticket – 250.00 UAH, for pensioners and students – 150.00 UAH; for schoolchildren – 100.00 UAH, for preschool children – for free.
Ancient Kyiv in the «Kyivan Rus Park» is located in the vill. Kopachiv, Obukhiv district, Kyiv region. Route taxis leave from Kyiv from the «Vydybitchi» metro station.
Detailed information on the website www.parkkyivrus.com
The Interfax subscribers can save money with the “openbusiness-20” promo code for a 20%-discount for the adult ticket (at full price) to the Principality of Kyivan Rus:
– by previous order by tel.: +38 044 461-99-37, +38 050 385-20-35
– or at the cash desk at the entrance to the «Kyivan Rus Park».
All timber that will not be included in the electronic timber accounting system will be considered illegal due to the adoption of instructions on the electronic timber accounting system, the press service of the State Forest Resources Agency said.
According to its press release, the relevant instructions for the timber accounting system were approved by the order of the Ministry of Natural Resources and registered by the Ministry of Justice. Electronic timber accounting is a program for monitoring harvested and sold timber.
“The delay in the adoption of the electronic timber accounting instruction lasted more than a year and a half, since the adoption of the document was extremely unprofitable for the participants in the shadow market. Now we will bring out of the shadow those processes that take place in a third of the area of Ukrainian forests,” Viktor Smal, the deputy chairman of the State Forest Resources Agency for digital development, is quoted as saying.
The agency explained the work of the electronic timber accounting system: a special tag is stuffed onto the harvested wood, in which information about the characteristics of the wood and the place of harvesting is encrypted. When timber is moved further to the warehouse, a consignment note is attached, which contains information about the transportation. All information goes to the electronic timber accounting system.
“Thus, it is possible to compare how much wood was harvested and how much sold. Wood that did not enter the system is considered illegal,” the press release said.
According to Smal, until recently, the e-wood accounting system was used exclusively by state-owned enterprises under the management of the state forestry agency, in whose jurisdiction 73% of the area of Ukrainian forests is, and there was no information on the rest of the forests in the system. While the adoption of the electronic timber accounting instruction in practice means that its use is mandatory for 100% of forest users and forest owners, all volumes of harvested and sold timber must be reflected in the system, the agency clarified. The action of the electronic consignment note applies to all forest users.
Agricom Group in the second half of 2021 invested about $ 2 million in the development of a plant for the production of cereal flakes under the Dobrodiya brand, located in the village of Mykhailo-Kotsiubynske (Chernihiv region), the company also plans to launch three new lines of products next year.
The co-owner and executive director of the agricultural holding and the new president of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club, Petro Melnyk, told about this in an exclusive interview with the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
“In 2021, we adopted a new strategy, according to which we plan to invest about $ 20 million in the development of processing in Ukraine within five years. Over the past six months, we have invested about $ 2 million. Now the construction of a production warehouse is in full swing, this is an additional investment. I hope we will participate in the opening by spring or closer to summer,” he said.
In addition, the agricultural holding plans to start production of three new product lines in 2022 at the specified production site with an area of 6 hectares in Chernihiv region.
“Next year we plan to launch three new product lines. These are not cereals, these are other products, we will actively announce their appearance on the shelves. Six hectares of the production site, where we see the second and third lines of production in the future,” Melnyk emphasized.
In addition, the group of companies is considering the feasibility of launching production of fuel pellets in Zhytomyr region.
According to Melnyk, Agricom Group is implementing the relevant plans thanks to a successful season in terms of financial indicators and an increase in sales of products under the Dobrodiya trademark.
The agro-industrial group, founded in 2013, specializes in the development, production and distribution of cereal-based food products. The group of companies cultivates about 28,000 hectares in Luhansk, Chernihiv, Rivne and Zhytomyr regions.
Etalon Corporation in 2022 expects prices for manufactured buses to rise by at least 20%, primarily due to a sharp rise in prices for energy and materials, president of the corporation Volodymyr Butko said.
“Metal prices have almost doubled, but I’m not talking about gas and electricity at all. Therefore, today it is clear that the prices at which we sold school buses will not work out, stocks are running out, and we say that prices will rise, at a minimum, by 20%. Plus wages, which we must increase – this is also in the price of products. Therefore, 20% is still the growth to which we are accustomed, but we think with horror that if the price of energy resources goes up two or three times, it will be possible to forget about production and sales,” Butko said at a final press conference in Kyiv.
He noted that the most energy-intensive production within the corporation is the forge plant.
According to Vitaliy Tretiak, the director of Chernihiv Forging Plant, this year the plant has increased the load of equipment by 25% due to the development of 20 units of new products.
“We have achieved in the cost price per 1 kg of products a decrease in the use of electricity in kilowatts by 5%, gas – by 3%, but these works were brought to zero by a sharp rise in prices – for electricity for the year by 90%, gas – by 272%, plus problems due to the pandemic – and this year we have somewhat lost the export component – traditional export to Poland, Germany. And now we are negotiating with companies from the countries of the former Yugoslavia, the Scandinavian countries, the United States,” Tretiak said.
He noted that the share of energy resources in the prime cost this year was 25% – 25.5% in kilowatts (three years ago – 30%), and taking into account the price it is already up to 50%, which is “very difficult” for the enterprise.
Etalon Corporation unites 21 enterprises. The main areas of activity are the production of vehicles (buses of various classes, trolleybuses, trams), mechanical engineering, warehouse logistics, water purification and saturation equipment.
As reported, about 255 buses (including 200 school buses) and four trolleybuses were sold in 2021.
DTEK Energy expects two more ships with 147,000 tonnes of thermal coal from Colombia and the United States to arrive in Ukraine by the end of the week, the company’s press service said.
According to its data, the first ship with 75,000 tonnes of coal from Colombia will arrive at the port of Chornomorsk next Friday, the second – with 72,000 tonnes from the United States will be moored at the TIS port at the weekend.
Coal from the fifth and sixth Panamax class ships that have arrived since the end of November will replenish the warehouses of the company’s TPPs.
“DTEK Energy continues to actively supply coal to the Ukrainian energy system. In addition to the four Panamax ships with imported coal, which have already arrived, have been fully unloaded or are now being sent to Ukrainian thermal power plants, we meet two more ships,” DTEK Energy CEO Ildar Saleev said.
In addition, the company has agreed on an additional ninth vessel. In general, this is about 618,000 tonnes of coal for the needs of Ukrainian thermal power plants. The first ship contracted by the company for the needs of the state-owned TPPs of Centrenergo arrived in Ukraine on November 20. The second, third and fourth Panamax ships with coal for DTEK Energy TPPs arrived on December 5, 16 and 17.
Since the beginning of December, the company has already imported about 200,000 tonnes of coal by sea. For the stable passage of the heating season, the company has contracted more than 1 million tonnes of imported fuel to date.
DTEK Energy is an operating company in charge of coal mining and electricity production from coal within the structure of Rinat Akhmetov’s DTEK Holding.
