Agricultural holding Continental Farmers Group has put into operation a new warehouse for storing seed potatoes with a capacity of 3,000 tonnes of simultaneous storage in Batiatychi village (Lviv region), the project cost UAH 3.2 million, according to the company’s website.
“We got a yield of seed potatoes higher than the planned indicators – 36.2 tonnes per ha. Over the season, the gross yield of seed varieties exceeded 15,600 tonnes, so we needed additional storage capacity. We plan to further increase the volume of seed potatoes, respectively, there is a need to increase storage capacity,” Continental said, citing Head of Continental Potatoes Cluster Orest Kravchuk.
According to the agricultural holding, growing potatoes is a strategic direction of its activities.
Continental Farmers Group cultivates chips, seed and food varieties of potatoes in Lviv and Ternopil regions. The total area under potatoes amounted to 1,600 hectares in 2020, in the current year – 1,800 hectares, with the total land bank being 195,000 hectares.
Ukraine’s leading pipe enterprises in January-November of this year increased production of pipes from ferrous metals, according to recent data, by 15.7% year-over-year, to 906,200 tonnes, including 87,100 tonnes produced in November. A source in the industry told Interfax-Ukraine, in particular, the enterprises of the Ukrtruboprom association have increased pipe production by 31.4% over this period, to 649,000 tonnes. Including in November, output amounted to 69,700 tonnes.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Ukrtruboprom welcomed a decision of the Ukrainian authorities to raise the export duty on scrap metal from EUR 58 to EUR 180 per tonne.
“Ukrainian pipe manufacturers expected this measure to restrict the export of strategic raw materials six months ago. It was from the end of spring that the export of ferrous scrap became uncontrolled, which caused a shortage of raw materials and even the import of round billets,” Ukrtruboprom Director General Heorhiy Polsky said, who signed the statement.
At the same time, he noted the timeliness of the duty hike: “It is important that the decision necessary for the Ukrainian pipe industry was made at the beginning of the winter season, when the volume of scrap procurement, the main raw material for production of seamless pipe products, is traditionally reduced.”
According to him, the new export duty will help stabilize the situation with scrap in the domestic market: pipe industry enterprises will be provided with raw materials, and people – with jobs and wages. After all, the export of highly processed products brings to the Ukrainian budget 4 times more taxes than the export of unprocessed raw materials abroad, Polsky summed up.
Within the framework of the YouTube project Experts Club, the Macroeconomic Review column has been launched on a monthly basis. In the December issue, the founder of the project, Ph.D. in Economics Maksim Urakin analyzed the main macroeconomic indicators of Ukraine; the video contains diagrams and illustrations dedicated to the current statistics of Ukraine.
Thus, according to the State Statistics Service, the population of Ukraine for incomplete 2021 decreased by more than a quarter of a million people.
In foreign trade, China confidently ranks first among the trading partners of Ukraine, while India was in the first position among the countries in terms of trade surplus.
In addition, up-to-date data were studied, statistics from the state employment center were presented and the ratio of unemployed to vacancies was derived. The industries with the highest unemployment rates as of November 1, 2021, as well as the indicators of the average monthly wage in the regions were analyzed.
Also, the analytical video presents the TOP-20 countries of Ukraine’s trading partners in terms of foreign trade turnover in January-September 2021.
To see a full video on the Experts Club YouTube channel, follow the link:
The office of the Office of the Croatian Tourism Association will be opened in Ukraine, Prime Minister of Croatia Andrej Plenković has said.
“We have decided to open the Office of the Croatian Tourism Association in Ukraine to further popularize and bring Croatia closer to Ukrainians, and take another step in our cooperation,” Plenković said said in a joint statement with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Wednesday.
According to Plenković, more tourists visited Croatia in 2021 than in the record-breaking 2019.
He also said that on December 8 at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, with his participation, the Croatian Language Center will be opened.
The foreign exchange reserves of Ukraine as of December 1, 2021, according to preliminary data, amounted to $30.549 billion (in equivalent), which is 3% more than at the beginning of November this year ($29.654 billion), according to the data of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) published on Tuesday.
“As of December 1, 2021, according to preliminary data, Ukraine’s foreign exchange reserves amounted to $30.549. In November, they grew by 3%, primarily due to the receipt of the second tranche from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the Stand-By Arrangement in the amount of SDR 500 million,” the NBU said.
As the National Bank said, the dynamics of the reserves in November was affected by the operations to manage the state debt: the total volume of payments for servicing and repaying the state and state-guaranteed debt in foreign currency amounted to $481.7 million (in equivalent).
A total of $251.3 million was spent on servicing and redeeming government domestic loan bonds, $145.2 million on servicing eurobonds, and the rest on meeting other government obligations in foreign currency.
In addition, in November, the government and the National Bank paid $145.2 million to the IMF.
In November, FX earnings in favor of the government amounted to $493.1 million (in equivalent), including EUR 250 million as a tranche from Cargill Financial Services International, Inc. and EUR 167.4 million from the placement of government domestic loan bonds.
The dynamics of reserves was also influenced by the operations of the NBU in the interbank FX market. To smooth out excessive fluctuations, the National Bank bought out $1.178 billion in the foreign exchange market and sold $792.6 million. In general, at the end of November, the volume of net purchases of foreign currency by the National Bank in the interbank FX market amounted to $385.2 million.
In addition, the dynamics of the indicator was influenced by the revaluation of financial instruments (changes in the market value and the exchange rate of the hryvnia compared to foreign currencies): last month their value fell by $135.6 million (in equivalent), according to the NBU data.
As the regulator said, the FX reserve coverage is four months of current external payments (CXP). This is enough to meet the obligations of Ukraine, the current operations of the government and the National Bank.
In addition, the NBU said that Ukraine’s net international reserves (NIR) in November grew by $290 million, or 1.4%, to $20.327 billion.
As reported, at the beginning of 2021, Ukraine’s FX reserves amounted to $29.113 billion, NIR was $18.114 billion.
In Ukraine, more than 40,000 children over 12 years old have already been vaccinated against COVID-19, but today we do not prioritize mass vaccination of children, Minister of Health Viktor Liashko said.
“We have already allowed children over the age of 12 to be vaccinated against coronavirus disease. More than 40,000 children have already taken advantage of this opportunity,” he said at the Ukraine 30. Summit Children’s all-Ukrainian forum in Kyiv on Tuesday.
Liashko said that in some countries of the world, children from five years old are allowed to be vaccinated against COVID-19, and he hopes that in Ukraine, vaccine manufacturers will register changes in the instructions and bring the appropriate drugs, which will expand the vaccination program for children.
“But today we do not prioritize mass vaccination of children against coronavirus disease, since we are focused on the risk group, on older and elderly people. It is a priority for us,” the minister said.
