Ukraine has registered 2,265 new cases of COVID-19, as well as 565 recoveries and 44 deaths in the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian Health Ministry’s press service said.
“Ukraine recorded 2,265 new cases of COVID-19 (including 275 children and 22 medical workers) over the past day, September 20, 2021. In the past 24 hours, 1,255 persons were hospitalized, 44 died, and 565 recovered,” the ministry said on Telegram.
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Ukraine has seen a total of 2,350,646 coronavirus infections, including 2,231,417 recoveries and 54,919 deaths.
TOP 20 countries of Ukraine’s foreign trade partners Jan-June 2021 (thousand USD)
The monitoring system will include all the information about the oligarchs if the law is passed by parliamentarians, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Oleksiy Danilov has stated.
“It [the system of monitoring oligarchs] is ready to work if [the law] is adopted by the parliamentarians. It has a high level of security. It is quite complex and combines all the information about all these people, their welfare, what they did, where they have taken everything. And then it will be clear who and where came from,” Danilov said on the air of Savik Shuster’s Freedom of Speech program on the Ukraina 24 TV Channel on Friday evening.
MONITORING SYSTEM, NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE COUNCIL, NSDC, OLIGARCHS
The Interdepartmental Commission on International Trade (ICIT) published its decision of April 23 this year in the Uriadovy Kurier newspaper on the application of a special duty on the import of wires to Ukraine, regardless of the country of origin for a period of three years: in the first year of the duty application it will be 23.5%, in the second – 22.3% and in the third – 21.2%. According to the announcement, the decision will take effect 30 days after publication. “This case is unprecedented, since the decision of the commission was not published for almost five months due to pressure from some MPs and officials who lobbied for the interests of importers,” Olena Omelchenko, a partner at Ilyashev & Partners, which represented the interests of Ukrainian manufacturers, said, commenting on this publication in a Tuesday release.
According to her, special duties will only apply to interchangeable goods to prevent problems with shortages.
According to the ICIT document, on July 28, 2020, at the initiative of the Odeskabel and Yuzhcable factories (in total, they produce over 50% of these products in Ukraine), the ICIT initiated a special investigation into the import of insulated wires, cables and other insulated electrical conductors to Ukraine, and also fiber optic cables. These are commodity codes according to Ukrainian foreign activity classifier 8544 49 20 00, 8544 49 91 00, 8544 60 10 10 8544 60 10 98, 8544 60 90 10 8544 60 90 90, 8544 70 00 10 8544 70 00 90.
During the investigation period – from the beginning of 2017 to the middle of 2020 – import volumes surged by 128.8%, the share of imports in total production – by 180.4%, in consumption – by 74.8%.
“The growth of imports of goods to Ukraine was due to such unforeseen circumstances as an increase in production, an increase in warehouse stocks and exports of goods from China, an exacerbation of trade tensions between China and the United States, a decline in demand in Belarus, global trends in the development of the renewable energy industry and the introduction of 4G technology,” the commission said.
According to the ICIT, as a result, with an increase in consumption by 30.9%, the volume of domestic production decreased 7.3%, sales fell by 8.6%, sales profit slid by 38.9%, while prices decreased 9.2%, and an increase in production costs by 3% was seen.
According to the State Customs Service, imports to Ukraine under code heading 8544 insulated wire, cable and other insulated electrical conductors, optical fibre cables in the first half of 2021 amounted to 30,200 tonnes by $310.95 million, having increased by 24.6% vs. 44.9%.
The export of these products in January-June-2021 amounted to 40,900 tonnes for $882.6 million, which, respectively, is 40.1% and 57.9% higher than in January-June 2020.
Among the countries from which most of the similar products are imported to Ukraine in monetary terms are Hungary (29.4%), Poland (17.2%), China (9.6%), Romania (11.4%), Czech Republic (7.7%) and Germany (7.4%), while the main countries of export of Ukrainian products are Germany (23.2%), Poland (19.7%), Romania (14.3%) and Hungary (13.8%).
The commission said that duties will not be applied to imports originating from a number of countries, including Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Montenegro, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Central African Republic.
This list also includes Chad, the Union of the Comoros, Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Republic of Kiribati, Laos, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal , Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Timor Leste, Togo, Tuvalu, Uganda, Tanzania, Yemen, Zambia, Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia.
The introduction of duties was supported by the Ukrelektrokabel association, which unites 16 enterprises, including 12 manufacturers of cable products, three manufacturers of basic materials and Ukrainian Research Cable Industry Institute. More than 95% of cables and wires used in Ukraine are annually produced at the facilities of the enterprises belonging to the association, with a total value of more than UAH 3.9 billion per year.
At the same time, the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine opposed it. “The potential introduction of additional import duties will actually be an additional tax for the telecommunications industry. This will negatively affect the investment ability of mobile network operators, since they will have to pay additional duties instead of investing in infrastructure,” the American Chamber of Commerce said.
Lithuania’s Alwark, the company involved in loading, warehousing, trade and lease of construction, communal and loading equipment, a representative of Linde Material Handling in Lithuania and Latvia – has acquired Linde Material Handling Ukraine LLC (LMH Ukraine), the subsidiary of Germany’s Linde Material Handling GmbH.
“Entering the Ukrainian market is a new business development opportunity for us,” Gediminas Šimkus, a shareholder of the Alwark group, said in a press release.
The cost of the deal was not disclosed.
In Ukraine, Alwark will represent Linde MH forklift trucks and warehousing equipment. The company hopes to cover up to 10% of the Ukrainian market in the next two or three years, and in the long run – 20% of the market share.
The Alwark group includes the eponymous companies in Latvia and Estonia, Pramoniniai sepeciai, Mobile Heavy Machinery in Lithuania and Ukraine. The consolidated turnover of the group in 2020 exceeded EUR 43 million, and profit before tax totaled EUR 2.7 million.
LMH Ukraine LLC in the first half of 2021 increased its revenue by 51%, to UAH 76.5 million, seeing a net profit of UAH 4.2 million compared to a net loss of UAH 0.7 million in the first half of last year.
In the public register of Ukraine, Lithuanian Alwark indicated as the owner of the limited liability company, and its beneficiary is the citizen of Finland Lauri Kustaa Äimä.
It is planned to create urban sports parks in all regional centers of Ukraine by 2023-2024, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“In 2022, such parks will be opened in Lviv, Kropyvnytsky, Kryvy Rih, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Sumy, and in 2023 they are planned to open in many regional centers and several other large cities of Ukraine. After that, in 2023-2024, all regional cities and not only will see such clusters that, it seems to me, our Ukrainian citizens will like them,” Zelensky said while inspecting the urban park on the territory of the National Complex Expocentre of Ukraine (VDNG).
He stressed that this is necessary for the development of physical culture among Ukrainians. “We know that more than 60% of citizens are not yet engaged in physical activity. Because of this, there are certain diseases. I believe that it is with such sports, entertainment and modern ‘magnets’ that we will increase the number of people who must engage in various sports for their own health,” Zelensky added.
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY, REGIONAL CENTERS, URBAN PARKS, URBAN SPORTS PARKS
