The State Agency of Ukraine on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving intends to submit for approval by the government a program to support energy efficiency for 2022-2026 with the volume of UAH 10 billion, acting chairman of the agency Kostiantyn Hura has said.
“Since the insulation credit program is coming to an end this year, we have developed the concept of a new target program for 2022-2026 to support energy efficient measures in the amount of UAH 10 billion, which would include not only “warm loans” for individuals, but also apply to industry, the budgetary sector, transport and individual projects for the development of bioenergy,” he said in a comment to the Energy Reform portal at the all-Ukrainian forum Ukraine 30. Ecology.
He said the mechanism of the proposed program for loans to legal entities will differ from the program of “warm loans,” which consists in compensation for their part.
“We are now considering the possibility of launching such a mechanism as lowering the loan rate, in this case – at the double refinancing rate of the NBU, which is currently 6.5%. That is, the bank’s standard rate minus 13% if an entrepreneur takes out a loan for energy efficiency. The banks’ expenses will be compensated from the budget,” he explained.
According to the expert, the agency has coordinated the program with all interested bodies and is now awaiting approval from the Ministry of Energy.
“After that, we will send it to the government. I hope for its support,” Hura said, adding that such a program to stimulate energy efficiency will provide an opportunity not only to modernize housing, budgetary sectors, enterprises, but also have a positive effect on the economy, creating projects, jobs, increasing budget revenues.
As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine extended until 2021 the state target program for energy efficiency and development of the sphere of energy production from renewable energy sources and alternative fuels, being in effect from 2010 to 2020.
Mass vaccination centers, which will be located in Brovary and Bila Tserkva, will start working in Kyiv region next weekend, the press service of the Kyiv regional state administration reported on Tuesday.
It is said that vaccination centers will work on weekends. The citizens who are on the waiting list for vaccination against COVID-19 in the Diia application, on the Diia website or through the contact center of the Ministry of Health, will be able to receive vaccinations there.
“Only those people, were previously invited for vaccination by a phone call, will be vaccinated. Priority will be given to the elderly,” the message says.
It is reported that vaccination in such centers will take place in compliance with all sanitary and anti-epidemic requirements.
To do this, they provide separate places for entering data, conducting vaccinations and waiting after vaccination.
As reported, over the past weekend, in 14 vaccination centers opened in Odesa, Kyiv, Lviv, Ternopil, Dnipro, Poltava, Rivne, Izmail, Kremenchuk, Lubny, Myrhorod and Horishni Plavni, 15,025 people were vaccinated against COVID-19.
President of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) Gianni Buquicchio called for accelerating the reform of the judiciary in Ukraine, and also noted that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) should be “safeguarded at any cost.”
“The judiciary reform must be comprehensive. The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe has been working on this reform in Ukraine for decades already, without real success,” Buquicchio said at the Democracy in Action: Zero Corruption Conference on Tuesday.
He stressed that the NABU must be safeguarded at any cost. “Because they have done a good job and they must continue to do their job,” the President of the Venice Commission said.
“Vetting the High Council of Justice and selecting new good members is a priority. The High Qualifications Commission is also a priority. But they two are interlinked, and I think it is much more important that the Council is vetted and reformed, in order to select good members of the High Qualifications Commission,” Buquicchio said.
According to him, the reform is also urgent, because Ukraine lacks 2,000 judges, and next year there will be another 1,700 judges who will retire by that time.
“This means that the judiciary will operate with half of its personnel. All these issues are urgent, and what I hope that the government and the parliament will do is to accelerate these reforms,” he said.
Authorized banks over the past week issued 592 loans under the Affordable Loans 5-7-9% program for UAH 1.9 billion, and in general, from the start of the program, the number of loans exceeded 17,600 for a total of UAH 45.9 billion.
The Ministry of Economy reported on the website that UAH 1.3 billion of the total amount of contracts concluded last week are loans to replenish working capital at 0%, UAH 480 million are loans to refinance the previously issued loans, and the amount of investment loans totaled UAH 194 million.
The Ministry of Finance, in turn, noted that out of 31 banks participating in the program, the leaders in issuing loans are PrivatBank (5,800 agreements for UAH 4.2 billion), Oschadbank (almost 2,400 agreements for UAH 4.5 billion), and Raiffeisen Bank Aval (1,900 loans for UAH 8.7 billion).
Ukraine International Airlines (UIA, Kyiv) has suspended the resumption of flights between Ukraine and Poland (Kyiv-Warsaw-Kyiv), which was planned for June 18.
According to the company’s website, the reason for this decision was the situation that arose in connection with the need to fly around the territory of Belarus and the subsequent redistribution of passenger traffic observed by the airline in this direction.
“UIA will carefully analyze the market for both point to point passengers traveling to/from Poland and passengers traveling with a transfer in Poland or Ukraine. In the event of a recovery in demand for the UIA network, the flights will be resumed,” the report says.
Currently, flights from Kyiv to Warsaw are also operated by Wizz Air, Ryanair and LOT.
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