An influential official and businessman from Saudi Arabia, Abdulrahman Alolaya, arrived in Ukraine on an unofficial business visit.
He is the CEO of the TaibahVally investment campaign and one of the leaders of the national investment program “Saudi Vision 2030”, which is looking for the most profitable and innovative areas for investment. The Sovereign Wealth Fund of Saudi Arabia, which finances the program, is one of the largest investment funds in the world.
The meeting took place at the Ministry of Digital Transformation. The guest was told about the developments in the field of digital state. Alexander Bornyakov, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation for IT Development, promised to provide a list of the most successful Ukrainian startups and promote cooperation in every possible way.
“Ukraine is very interesting for us, because it has a lot of experience in modern technologies, there are highly qualified personnel and interesting startups. At the same time, the investment market is in the early stages of development and this is a good period for investing,” said Abdulrahman Alolaya.
Abdulrahman Alolaya also visited the offices of several Ukrainian technology companies, including UNITCity.
“Ukraine has a large number of interesting IT services. However, the weak marketing of these services to the Arab market leads to the fact that they do not know about it. We want to fix it,” said Ukrainian businessman Oleksandr Chechuga. He and his partners invited an Arab investor to Ukraine. Dmitry Buravel and Alexander Chechuga are co-owners of the Ukrainian company BlockHunter, which work with block chain technologies, develops electricity storage systems; Roman Movchan is the owner and CEO of PrimeBerry, one of the largest producers and exporters of berries. These companies have already managed to enter the Saudi market and are ready to help other Ukrainian startups.
More guests from Saudi Arabia were interested in Ukrainian developments in the fields of education, block chain and digital government services.
Since the beginning of the vaccination campaign in Ukraine, more than 5 million people have received one vaccination against COVID-19. Over the past day, more than 147,000 people were immunized, the press service of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine reported.
“More than 5 million Ukrainians received at least one dose of vaccine against COVID-19! Some 147,118 people were vaccinated against COVID-19 per day on August 20, 2021. One dose was received by 60,970 people, 86,148 people were fully immunized,” the Telegram channel of the Ministry said on Saturday morning.
It is reported, that during the day 957 mobile teams, 2,732 vaccination points, 329 vaccination centers worked.
Since the beginning of the vaccination campaign, 5,032,722 people have been vaccinated, of which 5,032,720 received one dose and are fully immunized and 3,066,426 people received two doses (two of them received one dose abroad).
“A total of 8,099,146 vaccinations were carried out,” the Ministry of Health said.
Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili arrived in Ukraine.
“A rich program is ahead in Lviv and Kyiv, discussion of security issues, trade, economic, energy, tourism and many other issues,” Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal wrote in his Telegram channel.
It is reported that the Georgian delegation will take part in the constituent summit of the Crimean platform.
On August 19, the Nomination Committee for the appointment of heads of enterprises that are especially important for the economy selected the director of the state-owned enterprise Ukrspyrt among five applicants, the Ministry of Economy reported on its website on Friday.
“Today we have selected the head of the state-owned enterprise Ukrspyrt, whose key task is to complete the program of demonopolization of the alcohol market, which is now being quite successfully implemented, and to prepare for privatization,” Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economy Oleksiy Liubchenko said.
The Ministry of Economy does not specify the winner of the competition.
It is clarified that at the suggestion of the recruiting company responsible for the selection of candidates, the members of the nomination committee heard the proposals of the applicants regarding their vision for the development of the enterprise and reforming the alcohol industry.
In addition, the Committee approved a list of requirements for candidates for independent members of the Supervisory Board of Ukrenergo, which will allow launching the selection process for candidates for this position.
As specified, the meeting was attended by Minister of Economy Liubchenko, Regional Manager of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) for Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova Jason Pellmar, Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Matti Maasikas, First Deputy Minister of Finance Denys Ulyutin, Deputy Minister of Economy Kristina Holubytska, Deputy Minister of Energy on European Integration Yaroslav Demchenkov, Business Ombudsman Marcin Swiecicki, Head of IFC Activities in Ukraine Olena Voloshyna, Adviser to the Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine on Competition Policy, State Aid, State-Owned Enterprises and Privatization Panos Stamoulis.
Ukraine took fourth place in the rating of the global cryptoasset perception index in 2021, compiled by the U.S. analytical company Chainalysis.
According to the data on the Chainalysis website, the first three places were taken by Vietnam, India and Pakistan. Kenya took the fifth place. The United States came in eighth, China 13th.
The analytical report of the company says that Ukraine has the largest volume of transactions with crypto assets among market participants in the world. In addition, Ukraine entered the top ten countries with the highest bitcoin earnings in 2020.
The Digital Transformation Ministry, commenting on this rating, said that the fourth place, which Ukraine took in the rating, indicates the desire of citizens to use crypto assets and the need to create mechanisms for the further development of the crypto industry in the country.
“Due to the data of the blockchain company Chainalysis, we know that Ukrainians actively use cryptoassets and know how to make money on them. One of the priority goals of our ministry is to provide all the necessary conditions for the operation and development of crypto companies in Ukraine. Virtual assets will strengthen the position of Ukraine as a jurisdiction on the international map,” Deputy Minister for IT Development Oleksandr Borniakov said.
The turnover of retail trade in Ukraine in July 2021 year-over-year, in comparable prices increased by 10.1%, while in June it grew by 13%, the State Statistics Service said on Friday.
According to the State Statistics Service, in July compared to June 2021, retail trade grew by 6.5%.
In January-July 2021, compared to the same reporting period in 2020, retail trade turnover also increased by 13%.
The largest growth in retail trade turnover of enterprises (legal entities and individual entrepreneurs) for seven months of 2021 was recorded in Chernivtsi (by 28.8%), Ternopil (by 28.2%), Lviv (by 20.8%), Zakarpattia (by 20.7%), Khmelnytsky (19.8%), Poltava (19%), Vinnytsia (18.9%), Ivano-Frankivsk (18.1%), Rivne (15%), Zhytomyr (14.8%), Kyiv (14%), Zaporizhia (13.9%), Dnipropetrovsk (12.7%) and Chernihiv (12%) regions.
