Caris Ukraine LLC (Kyiv), controlled by the South Korean company Caris, which in July 2020 concentrated more than 89.8% of the shares of the idle JSC Strila Crane Building Company (Brovary, Kyiv region) and then changed its name to Caris Rail Strila, withdrew from the shareholders of this company.
According to a statement in the information disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission, according to data received by Caris Rail Strila from the depository on June 14, Caris Ukraine LLC owned 89.1% of its charter capital (another 0.02% was owned by co-owner Vladlen Levchuk), and the owners of a total of 89.79% of the shares were ex-head of the supervisory board Dmytro Prosin (31.43% of the shares of the joint-stock company), Natalia Lola (19.61%), and Andriy Kulyk (38.75%), which actually owned the same stakes prior to their acquisition by Caris Ukraine.
The reason for the corresponding changes in the shareholder structure was not specified in the report.
As reported, in July of this year, co-owner of Caris Ukraine LLC Vladlen Levchuk acquired 89.84% of the shares in Strila, which has not been conducting business for several years, from three large individuals at a price of $ 69.03 (or UAH 1,956 at the time of the conclusion of the sales contract) per share.
Caris Rail Strila, which employed nine people by the beginning of this year, does not carry out production activities (since 2015), and receives its main income from the sale of materials and partial lease of premises.
Caris, according to its information, has enterprises in many countries of the world: construction, logistics companies, companies for the production of innovative materials and components for road construction and traffic safety, and also has an R&D center that owns patented innovative technologies for the production of polymer and superhard materials used in heat power engineering, industrial electronics and mechanical engineering.
Mykolaiv Locomotive Repair Plant has entered into a cooperation agreement with the official representative of the Egyptian National Railways for the modernization of 55 locomotives of the AD Tranz series, the enterprise’s press service said on Facebook.
“The modernization will be carried out both at the facilities of our plant and at the facilities of Egyptian colleagues and partners who own locomotive repair plants in Egypt,” the report said, citing Director of Mykolaiv Locomotive Repair Plant Serhiy Roi.
According to him, a deep modernization of locomotives will be carried out with the installation of new diesel engines, new power and support equipment and microprocessor control systems, which will significantly improve the performance of locomotives and reduce the cost of their service.
“The partnership is planned for a long-term, since the declared number of locomotives in the future can be increased to 200 units,” Roi said.
The agreement, the value of which has not been disclosed, also provides for further maintenance of locomotives, in particular, the creation of a service department in Egypt, where representatives of Mykolaiv Locomotive Repair Plant will carry out engineering work for servicing locomotives.
The report notes that Egyptian locomotives are “younger” than those operated in the post-Soviet space and those the plant previously dealt with – they were produced in 1996-2010.
Mykolaiv Locomotive Repair Plant, established in 2010, specializes in maintenance, minor repairs and overhaul of locomotives, as well as other locomotive parts and assemblies.
The initial registrations of electric vehicles in Ukraine (new and used) in May 2021 decreased by almost 36% compared to May last year, to 622 units, including registrations of cars decreased by almost 36%, to 590 units, and commercial grew by 14%, to 32 units, according to the Ukrautoprom association.
According to a post on its website, the share of new electric cars in total registrations accounted for 11% (67 units).
The total number of registered passenger cars is 66 new and 524 used, and there is only one new commercial vehicle.
Compared to April this year, registrations in May decreased by 11%.
The most popular electric car in May was once again the Nissan Leaf with 186 cars of this model that received Ukrainian registration (in April – 198).
As reported, Nissan Motor Ukraine, the official distributor of Nissan in Ukraine, announced the start of official sales in Ukraine in the summer of the updated Nissan Leaf (before that, only used ones were imported to Ukraine), and in May announced that in the offered rich configuration N-Connecta the price starts from UAH 976,490.
The second result in May 2021 was shown by Tesla Model 3 with 66 registrations, and the third was AUDI E-Tron (33 registrations). The fourth most popular was Tesla Model S with 32 registrations, and Chevrolet Bolt closes the top five of the May electric car market with 29 cars.
The most popular commercial electric vehicle remains the Renault Kangoo Z.E. with 24 registrations.
According to the association, in January-May, a little more than 3,000 electric vehicles passed the first registration in Ukraine, which is 12% more than in the same period in 2020, with 90% of them being used.
In particular, registrations of new cars increased by 36.5% versus January-May 2020, to 299 units, used ones – by almost 10%, to 2,716 units.
The negative balance of Ukraine’s foreign trade in goods in January-April 2021 increased by 47.3% compared to January-April 2020, to $ 1.299 billion from $ 882 million, the State Statistics Service has reported.
According to its data, the export of goods from Ukraine for the specified period increased by 18.8% compared to the same period in 2020, to $ 19.094 billion, imports – by 20.3%, to $ 20.393 billion.
The State Statistics Service clarified that in April compared to March 2021, the seasonally adjusted export volume increased by 2.9%, to $ 5.274 billion, while imports decreased by 8.5%, to $ 5.606 billion.
The seasonally adjusted foreign trade balance in April 2021 was also negative and amounted to $ 359 million, which is better than the previous month ($571 million).
The ratio of coverage of imports by exports for the four months of the current year was 0.94 (for the four months of 2020 – some 0.95).
The State Statistics Service specified that foreign trade operations were carried out with partners from 216 countries of the world.
The State Agency for Tourism Development of Ukraine plans to launch a poll campaign of foreign tourists at the border in August or September, Head of the agency Maryana Oleskiv has said.
“We will soon announce a tender, and I think that in August or September there will be such a poll. They will ask the purpose of arrival, time of stay, what people plan to visit, what expenses are planned, etc. This will allow us to understand how many tourists we have from the entire entrance flow, who is this tourist, what are her/his preferences, where does she/he get information from, the purpose of the visit,” Oleskiv told Interfax-Ukraine.
In addition, according to her, the State Agency for Tourism Development will also announce a tender for the purchase of these payment systems.
“Since they will most accurately give us a picture of exactly the costs and composition of costs, as well as show where the foreign tourist comes from and what he spends his money on. This will allow us to more accurately plan our marketing campaigns,” she said.
Among the priority countries for inbound tourism from abroad, Oleskiv named Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Poland, as well as Israel and China.
“So far, China does not allow its citizens to actively travel. But we are at a ‘low start.’ As soon as we understand that the country starts to provide opportunities for citizens to travel, we will be actively involved,” she said.
Oleskiv expects that in 2021 Ukraine will be able to reach half of the volume of international tourism in 2019, and in 2023-2024 tourism worldwide should return to the pre-quarantine level.
The State Agency for Tourism Development of Ukraine intends to ask for an increase in funding to UAH 700 million, and will also initiate a change in the public procurement for marketing, Head of the agency Maryana Oleskiv has said.
“This year it is enough [UAH 100 million for the development of the tourist potential of Ukraine], since the agency starts using funds with a five-month delay. But in general, this money will not be enough for a large-scale advertising campaign, especially in TV. There is no need to do it, because the TV channels already pick up the content about Discover Ukraine, then abroad it is necessary. But there is not enough money for this, because, for example, a week of digital advertising on the BBC costs $100,000, and even more expensive on TV,” Oleskiv said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
She said that next year more funds are needed to develop the tourism potential, since Ukraine is not competitive, if we compare, for example, how much Turkey or Georgia spend on such needs.
“For 2021, we plan to give a budget request for UAH 700 million. But here it is worth emphasizing that if we cannot make changes to public procurement and carry out marketing activities a little differently than provided by the ProZorro platform, it will be difficult for us even to use the existing funds,” Oleskiv said.
According to her, given the lengthy procedures for approval and coordination of various documents, which took the agency more than five months, the agency is only now starting to announce tenders for the promotional campaign.
“This model is ineffective for the marketing of the country. Everything must be stable. We cannot stop for six months and not engage in promotion. There must be planning for at least two or three years, the possibility of flexible use of the budget, depending on any changes,” she added.
The head of the State Agency for Tourism Development said that the existing system of public procurement does not allow doing this, which, in turn, greatly complicates the marketing of Ukraine in general.
“Therefore, we will initiate a conversation about amendments to the public procurement law to make a different procedure for marketing procurement. It may need to be some kind of supervisory board from different people from creative fields, or, for example, a tender for one agency per year, which would work with this product within the allocated budget according to a certain plan, changes to which would be made in agreement with this supervisory board. This should be a completely different approach than what exists now,” Oleskiv said.
