National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 11/11/21
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
Ukraine in January-October this year reduced imports of aluminum ores and concentrate (bauxite) in quantity terms by 2.3% compared to the same period last year, to 4.189 million tonnes.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service, during this period, bauxite imports in monetary terms decreased by 0.1%, to $190.706 million.
At the same time, the products were imported mainly from Guinea (60.74% of supplies in monetary terms), Brazil (21.1%) and Ghana (16.18%).
In January-October 2021, Ukraine re-exported 271 tonnes of bauxite for $65,000 to Belarus (52.31%), Poland (43.08%) and Germany (4.62%), while in ten months of 2020, some 184 tonnes of bauxite were re-exported to Poland for $29,000.
Israel’s Similarweb, one of the leading digital intelligence companies that carried out an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in May this year, announced the opening of two new European offices in Kyiv, Ukraine and Munich, Germany.
“Similarweb’s Kyiv office will employ over 50 R&D and IT professionals, and this number is expected to triple in the next two years,” the company said on its website.
According to the report, the Kyiv office will serve as a technical center, employing a highly skilled workforce in Ukraine, and is intended to be an important part of Similarweb’s global success.
The Munich office will carry out mainly commercial, marketing and technical functions, in particular, among the company’s clients there are already a number of leading German brands, including Adidas and DHL.
Similarweb, headquartered in Tel Aviv, clarifies that it has increased its headcount in all 13 global offices this year and plans to continue its rapid global expansion in the new year.
At the IPO in May of this year, the company was valued at $ 1.6 billion. Its revenue for the nine months of this year amounted to $ 97.52 million, an increase of 45.9% over the same period in 2020, and net losses tripled to $ 45.17 million. Free funds of the company by the end of the third quarter amounted to $ 159.1 million.
The company, founded in 2007, monitors websites and mobile apps and provides analytics and digital data to customers. According to the website, the number of its staff exceeds 800 people.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in the November report increased the forecast for the export of Ukrainian wheat in 2021/22 (July-June) by 0.5 million tonnes compared to the previous month – from 23.5 million tonnes to 24 million tonnes, while maintaining the estimate of its harvest at the level of data for October – 33 million tonnes.The projected world export of wheat will be a record 203.2 million tonnes (3.5 million tonnes more than the USDA data in October), mainly due to the growth of its exports from the EU, India, Russia and Ukraine.In the November report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture also kept the forecast for the corn harvest in 2021/22 at 38 million tonnes for Ukraine, its exports at 31.5 million tonnes.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a law on the development of biomethane production in Ukraine (No. 5464), which was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada at the second reading on October 21. The corresponding note appeared on the page of the bill on the parliament’s website on Tuesday.According to the press service of the State Agency for Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine, this law lays the foundation for the production and development of biomethane in Ukraine, as well as its export to the countries of the European Union.It is specified that for this purpose it is planned to introduce the appropriate terminology, the possibility of verifying purified biogas (biomethane), the physical and chemical characteristics of which must meet the requirements of regulatory legal acts for natural gas, issuing a guarantee of origin for the volume of biomethane produced, entering a register of production and consumption of biomethane.“Development of a register of production and use of biomethane and cooperation with similar registers of EU countries is a potential opportunity to sell biomethane to other countries, confirmed by a guarantee of origin,” the message reads.It notes that, in pursuance of the State Energy Efficiency Law, work has already begun on the development of a procedure for the functioning of the biomethane register.As reported, bill No. 5464 adopted by the Verkhovna Rada regulates the concept of “biomethane” as “biogas,” which in its physical and technical characteristics corresponds to the regulatory legal acts on natural gas for supply to gas distribution and transmission networks or for use as a motor fuel.In addition, the document provides for the creation of a biomethane register for accounting in the system, establishes the procedure for the formation of guarantees of origin of biomethane.According to the Bioenergy Association of Ukraine, the potential for biomethane production in Ukraine is 8 billion cubic meters annually, which corresponds to 25% of domestic gas consumption.According to Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Roman Leschenko, the development of biomethane production gives Ukraine every chance to become a center for its production and supply, as well as a source of energy security for Europe. Its use in production chains will allow Ukrainian farmers to obtain an alternative source of energy from waste and secondary products of their own production and, as a result, to use biomethane instead of natural gas for generating heat and electricity, as well as to use it as a fuel for transport and as a raw material for the chemical industry.