Ministry of Economy suggests raising minimum wage from 2024 to UAH 7651 a month from the current UAH 6,700, according to Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine (FTU) at May 25 meeting of joint working commission of trade unions, employers and government on fixing minimum wage.
With reference to the Deputy Minister of Economy Tatiana Berezhnaya said that the Ministry of Economy has already sent a proposal to the Ministry of Finance.
In addition, the agency is in favor of increasing the official salary of the employee I wage rate level UTS, frozen since December 1, 2021 at the level of UAH 2893 to UAH 3443.
At the same time, it is pointed out that, according to the Ministry of Social Policy, the actual size of the cost of living for able-bodied persons in prices of April 2023 was 7782 UAH per month.
According to Berezhnaya, the Ministry of Economy is also in the process of revising preliminary indicators of macro forecast for the next budget period, which the Finance Ministry expects by June 19, 2023, as part of the preparation of the state budget 2024.
The deputy head of the FPU Vasyl Andreev and the head of the department of budget and remuneration of labor apparatus of the FPU Svetlana Makonyuk said that trade unions offer to set the minimum wage in 2024 at 9435 UAH – not lower than the actual size of the cost of living for employable persons in light of the forecast consumer price index 2023.
They also recalled that the EU recommends setting the minimum wage at 50% of the average wage
In turn, representative of the employers Sergei Bilenky noted that they expect to increase the minimum wage by 10-15% of the current level in 2024.
As reported, since October 1, 2022 the minimum wage in Ukraine increased by 200 UAH – up to 6700 UAH.
Stalkanat PJSC (Odessa) received net profit amounting to UAH 3 billion 227.799 million following the results of its work in 2022, while in 2021 it was not, because the enterprise was in the process of creation due to its separation from Stalkanat-Silur PJSC.
According to the company’s annual report, in 2022, Stalkanat received a net profit of 325.073 million UAH, while in 2021 it finished with a net loss of 309 thousand UAH.
The average number of employees of the company in 2022 – 916 people, in 2021 – 16 people.
According to the report, owners of the shares in 2022 were paid dividends amounting to 197.185 million UAH.
The auditors note that since the company was registered on December 6, 2021, the data for 2021 are not comparable for 2022.
As it was reported, in January-March of this year, Stalkanat increased its net profit by 2.2 times compared to the same period last year – up to UAH 77.304 million, net income for this period decreased by 3.2% – to UAH 701.047 million. Undistributed profit as of March 31, 2023 constituted UAH 234,019 mln.
The general meeting of shareholders, which took place on September 3, 2021, decided to separate PJSC Stalkanat-Silur and create a new company – Stalkanat with the transfer of its property, rights and obligations according to the approved distribution balance sheet. Assets of PrJSC Stalkanat were based on the distribution balance sheet and act of acceptance dated December 31, 2021.
PJSC “PA “Stalkanat-Silur” (Odessa) previously had two branches – in Odessa and Khartsyzsk, Donetsk region on NKT. On December 1, 2016, the company’s management officially notified about the shutdown of the company’s branch in Khartsyzsk – a relevant announcement was published in the Uryadovy Kurier newspaper. Later, the management of PAO Stalkanat-Silur PJSC stated about the seizure of the company’s branch in Khartsyzsk on NKT, sent a corresponding statement to the National Police.
According to the company, as of the end of 2022, David Nemirovskyy (Ukraine) has 50.0001% in PJSC Stalkanat, Anton Mikhalenko – 23.7%, Adery Liron (both in Israel) – 23.1% and Vitaliy Dubovych (Ukraine) – 3.1999%.
The registered capital of Stalkanat PJSC is UAH 17.736 mln, and the par value of one share is UAH 0.17.
The Verkhovna Rada has supported drone production in Ukraine by exempting components of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from value added tax and import duty for the time being.
Bills No. 9275 and 9276 were voted for by 284 and 289 people’s deputies at the plenary session of the Verkhovna Rada on Monday in the first reading and as a whole, respectively, parliamentarian Yaroslav Zheleznyak (Golos faction) said in a Telegram.
The bills amend the Tax and Customs Codes and help optimize UAV production and supply processes.
In particular, for the duration of martial law, components (materials, units, equipment units, components) of UAVs that enterprises import for their own activities for the production and repair of unmanned aerial vehicles are exempt from VAT and import duty.
Ukraine’s total national debt in April 2023 increased by 3.6% and reached a new historic high: in dollar terms – by $4.37 billion, to $124.28 billion, in UAH – by 159.9 billion, to UAH 4 trillion 544.9 billion, according to the Ministry of Finance.
According to them, the direct national debt over the previous month rose by 4.0% – to $115.08 billion, or UAH 4 trillion 208.3 billion, amounting to 92.6% of the total public debt and publicly guaranteed debt.
It is reported that the external direct debt in April increased by $4.68 billion – to $75.79 billion, while the domestic direct – reduced by 8.0 billion UAH to UAH 1 trillion 436.7 billion (the equivalent of $39.29 billion).
The aggregate external public debt of Ukraine in April 2023 increased by 5.9%, or $4.61 billion – to $83.11 billion, while the total domestic – decreased by 0.6%, or 8.6 billion UAH, to 1 trillion 505.5 billion UAH.
As a result, the share of total external public debt in April increased from 65.5% to 66.9%.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the share of obligations in euros at the end of April rose to 26.02%, in Canadian dollars – to 2.57%, in SDR – to 13.24%, while in U.S. dollars it fell to 27.11%, in UAH – to 30.24%, in Yen – 0.80% and in British pounds remained at 0.02%.
The Ministry also specified that 65.18% of the state debt had a fixed interest rate, whereas 13.24% was tied to the IMF rate, 6.42% – to SOFR, 0.92% – to Libor, 3.77% – to EURIBOR.
The rate of another 3.19% of the government debt is tied to the consumer price index, while 6.93% is tied to the NBU discount rate. We are talking about government bonds from the portfolio of the National Bank. The most recent ones are the securities tied to the discount rate, which the NBU bought within the frames of budget emission financing.
Finally, 0.33% of the government debt is linked to the Ukrainian index of interest rates on deposits of individuals, used in portfolio guarantee programs.
Since the beginning of 2023, the total national debt of Ukraine increased by 11.6%: $12.89 billion in dollar equivalent and UAH 471.4 billion.
As previously reported, the public debt and publicly guaranteed debt of Ukraine in 2022 increased by $ 13.4 billion – up to 78.5% of GDP from 48.9% at the end of 2021.
The Verkhovna Rada has supported in the first reading the government’s bill #8401 on the abolition of a flat tax of 2% and other benefits for entrepreneurs starting July 1, 2023. This is one of the conditions for cooperation with the IMF and the dragging out of the bill has caused concern.
According to information on the website of the Rada, 227 people’s deputies voted for the adoption of the bill, with the required minimum of 226 votes.
“The adoption of the bill will increase revenues to the state and local budgets in 2023 in the amount of about 10 billion UAH,” Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko commented on the parliament’s decision.
According to published information, the bill proposes to cancel the possibility for sole proprietors and legal entities to be single tax payers of group III with the application of the single tax rate of 2% of income and to resume payment of single tax for groups I and II FLP.
The bill provides for the resumption of documentary checks, but during martial law they will be held in the presence of safe access to areas, premises and other property used for economic activities and / or taxable objects, as well as documents and other information related to the calculation and payment of taxes and fees.
The ministry noted that it is proposed to resume the application of penalties for violations of tax laws, the correctness of the calculation, calculation and payment of a single fee for obligatory state social insurance and the use of BPR / BPR and resume the terms defined in the tax law.
Marchenko stressed that the bill does not provide for an increase in taxes and does not introduce new tax rates, and the rules are aimed primarily at bringing the tax laws back to their pre-war state.
The law is expected to take effect July 1, 2023 – as stipulated by agreements with the IMF.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the bill is one of the 19 structural beacons of the four-year, $15.6 billion EFF program for Ukraine, which was approved by the IMF Board of Directors on March 31.
The program’s schedule calls for three tranches of SDR664 million ($893 million) to be disbursed to Ukraine after the first tranche in mid-June and October this year and in late February the following year after the first, second and third revisions, when commitments are evaluated for the end of April, June and December this year, respectively.
The IMF mission on the first review of the program is currently working in Vienna. Its results may be as early as the end of May.
The Cabinet of Ministers approved the financial plan of PJSC Ukrnafta for 2023, which provides for 12 billion UAH of net profit, the head of the company Serhiy Koretskyy said on Facebook on Monday.
“For the first time in the years of the company’s existence, this document was prepared in accordance with the requirements of the law of Ukraine “On management of state property” and received five mandatory conclusions of the ministries,” Koretsky wrote.
The conclusions, in particular, received from the ministries of economy, defense, energy, digital transformation and finance.
The document provides for the company on the results of activity in 2023 74 billion UAH of net income, 12 billion UAH of net profit, 25 billion UAH of tax payments in favor of the state, including rent, income tax, VAT, payroll taxation, as well as 9 billion UAH of investments, including a record 5.5 billion UAH of investments in production.
“The actual results of work, which we openly communicate, prove that managerial decisions taken by the team are able to provide a stable rhythmic work of the enterprise and, as a consequence, the growth of income and profits,” said the head of Ukrnafta.
As it was reported, Ukrnafta finished the first quarter of 2023 with a net profit of UAH 4.3 billion.
This figure is equal to net profit received by the company for the whole 2020 (UAH 4.3 billion) and almost twice as much as the result for 2021 (UAH 2.4 billion).
Ukrnafta’s average daily oil output in the first quarter of 2023 amounted to 3.926 thousand tons, while the average daily output in 2022 was 3.753 thousand tons.
On November 5, 2022, the Supreme Commander in Chief decided to confiscate Ukrnafta shares (except for the controlling interest in Naftohaz Ukrainy) as military property of the state for the period of martial law. Prior to the seizure, the structures of Ihor Kolomoyskyy and Hennadiy Boholyubov owned about 42% of Ukrnafta shares.
As of the end of March 2023, Ukrnafta had 89 fields with 3.7 thousand oil and gas wells. The company operates 451 petrol stations.
“Ukrnafta in 2022 reduced its production of oil with condensate by 8.6% compared to 2021 – to 1.37 million tons.
“Ukrnafta” in 2023 plans to increase oil production by 5.8% (by 0.08 million tons) compared to last year – to 1.45 million tons, gas – by 0.3% (by 0.003 million cubic meters), to 1.04 billion cubic meters
