Metinvest, an international vertically integrated mining and metallurgical group of companies, will act as the general partner of the international forum “Decarbonization of the Steel Industry: a Challenge for Ukraine,” which will be held in Kyiv on July 14, 2021.
According to the company’s press release, an event on the topic that has been discussed by the entire international community in recent years will be held in Ukraine for the first time.
As noted, for many years of operation, Metinvest has been striving to reduce the negative impact of production on the environment. Over the past 10 years, the group has allocated more than $ 3.4 billion for environmental initiatives and is committed to further reducing its carbon footprint to combat climate change.
Meanwhile, achieving carbon neutrality will be a big challenge for Ukrainian companies, as it involves a complete change in production processes and supply chains. In addition, the necessary technologies that will make the country’s economy carbon-free are only at the research stage. To develop a detailed roadmap for the transition to a “green” industry requires interaction between manufacturers, engineering companies, consumers, suppliers and the government.
Yuriy Ryzhenkov, the director general of Metinvest, stressed that the industry is facing a serious task that will affect the life of the entire country.
“Decarbonization can completely change both production and technologies. The sooner business and the state develop a unified approach to achieving carbon neutrality, the easier this process will be for the Ukrainian economy,” the top manager stated.
The forum is organized by GMK Center, an information-analytical and consulting company working in the field of metallurgy and industry. At the forum it is planned to discuss issues related to decarbonization of steel production, existing and promising technologies, plans of companies to reduce CO2 emissions and interaction with the state in this direction. The event will be attended by the representatives of mining and metallurgical companies, international engineering, consulting and R&D companies, as well as government officials, business associations and industry experts.
Ukrainians are actively switching to non-cash payments – 48% of citizens began to pay cashless more often than a year ago.
So, according to a study of the attitude of Ukrainians to non-cash payments, carried out by InMind for Mastercard in June 2021, some 49% are ready to completely abandon cash payments in the future, and every third Ukrainian is ready to do this within the next two years.
The company also notes that the pandemic has significantly influenced the growth of popularity of digital commerce in the world and in Ukraine in particular: 60% of surveyed users claim that they began to shop online much more often since the beginning of pandemic, and 45% make orders online regularly several times per month.
Also, Mastercard reported that during the pandemic, the “food” segment came out on top in Europe, showing an increase of 26%, the “electronics” segment grew by 24%, while in Ukraine both of these categories grew by 38%.
Also, an interesting trend in 2020 was the growth in the penetration of online transactions among customers over the age of 80 – both in the European market and in Ukraine. For example, in Czech Republic, the growth of online transactions in this category of users quadrupled last year.
“In Ukraine, the market has already recovered. We saw the first decrease in market activity and a significant drawdown in number of transactions during the first lockdown, when everyone was in shock. In January of this year there was also a lull, but January itself is not the most active month. But the lockdown in April did not show such a visible decrease in activity – people got used to it,” Director General of Mastercard in Ukraine and Moldova Inha Andreyeva said.
According to her, in Ukraine since 2016 there has been a stable increase in non-cash transactions by an average of 3% year on year.
“To date, nine out of ten transactions are already in the non-cash segment,” she said.
Also, 44% of Ukrainians prefer to choose shops with the possibility of cashless payments, and another 8% said they were not ready to use the services of shops without an option of cashless payments.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal instructed the relevant ministries and departments to issue clarifications regarding the launch of the land market.
“In less than a week, the land market will start operating in Ukraine. We held a preparatory meeting with representatives of ministries, the President’s Office, the NSDC secretary and members of the specialized committees of the Verkhovna Rada,” Shmyhal wrote in his Telegram channel.
The prime minister said that he instructed the relevant departments to pay special attention to the process of starting the reform.
“He also instructed the Ministry of Agrarian Ministry, the Ministry of Justice and the State Tax Service to issue clarifications regarding the land market, the work of notaries and to maximize the resolution of issues that Ukrainians may have,” he said.
Ukraine since the beginning of the 2020/2021 marketing year (July-June) and as of June 25, 2021 exported 43.94 million tonnes of grain and leguminous crops, which is 21.8% less than on the same date of the previous year.
According to the information and analytical portal of the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine, to date, 16.41 million tonnes of wheat, 22.59 million tonnes of corn, and 4.21 million tonnes of barley have been exported.
As of the indicated date, 123,700 tonnes of flour were also exported.
According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, Ukraine exported 56.72 million tonnes of grain and legumes in 2019/20.
MAIN TRADE PARTNERS OF UKRAINE IN % FROM TOTAL VOLUME (IMPORT FROM OTHER COUNTRIES TO UKRAINE) JAN-MARCH 2021
The transport enterprises of Ukraine (excluding the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as part of the JFO area) in January-March 2021 reducedtransportation of goods by 3.6% compared to the same period in 2020, to 135.3 million tonnes, the State Statistics Service has reported.
According to its data, the freight turnover of carriers for the specified period decreased by 5.9%, to 64.4 billion tonne-kilometers.
According to statistics, in the first quarter of 2021, some 69.7 million tonnes of goods weretransported by rail in domestic traffic and for export, which is 5.7% less than in January-March 2020. Some 43.2 million tonnes (less by 0.5%) weretransported by road, 700,000 tonnes (less by 16.1%) by water, 21.7 million tonnes (less by 2.1%) by pipeline, 20,000 tonnes (more by 15.6%) by air.
