JSC Farmak pharmaceutical company (Kyiv) has launched the project “Electronic dossier of a series of medicinal products,” upon completion of which paper-based records of information on the production of a series of medicines will be completely replaced by electronic ones. According to the company’s press release, the project partner was Siemens, which introduced similar systems for the pharmaceutical companies Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Takeda, etc.
The electronic dossier of a drug batch includes all the necessary protocols: from quality control of raw materials to information on all stages and parameters recorded during the manufacture of the drug.
The company clarifies that the introduction of an electronic dossier minimizes the risk of operator error, optimizes the technological process and allows real-time monitoring of the situation at the site, and also provides complete statistics for calculating the overall efficiency of the equipment
In addition, the electronic dossier allows an authorized person to analyze online all indicators of the drug for deviations and release a batch of the drug remotely, from anywhere in the world.
“Digitalization is a requirement of our time. As every citizen of Ukraine has an electronic passport, so each series of drugs should have its own electronic dossier. We are interested in the deep processes of digitalization, so we introduce electronic quality certificates, electronic research protocols, electronic dossiers of drug series and much more,” Executive Director of JSC Farmak Volodymyr Kostiuk said.
Farmak is the leader of the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market, produces medicines in all 14 therapeutic groups. Among the main directions are endocrinological, gastroenterological, cardiological, neurological, anti-cold and other drugs. Annually it introduces to the market about 20 new complex component modern drugs. Currently, the company’s product portfolio includes about 400 drugs.
From the beginning of 2021, confectionery products in Ukraine has risen in price by 15% to 20% due to the rise in sugar prices caused by the cartel agreement of its producers and the lack of supply of this product on the domestic market, Head of the Association of producers of confectionery, food concentrates, starch products and coffee in Ukraine (Ukrkondprom) Oleksandr Baldyniuk said during press conferences at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.
“In our industry, the rise in sugar prices has led to quite severe economic consequences, which forced us from the beginning of the year to increase the cost of our products by 15% to 20%. We got a situation when the industry reduced production by 25,000 to 26,000 tonnes, or UAH 1.3 billion in monetary terms,” he said.
Baldyniuk said the consequence of the reduction in production was an increase in imports of confectionery products to Ukraine by 20%. The industry also loses out in export positions in the EU, CIS and Central Asia markets. The high price of sugar has led to a situation where the production of caramel in some EU countries is more profitable than in Ukraine.
According to him, over the past 11 months, Ukrainian processing enterprises receive sugar at prices 30% to 40% higher than in Europe, in particular, on the London Stock Exchange over the past month, sugar fell from $459 per tonne to $432 per tonne, while in Ukraine it rose in price from $660 per tonne to $781 per tonne.
The head of Ukrkondprom said that too expensive sugar in Ukraine leads to the fact that Ukrainian producers lose their competitiveness in the domestic and export markets, forcing the industry’s enterprises to cut production and lay off employees.
Baldyniuk said that the crisis situation in the confectionery industry has developed due to the cartel conspiracy of sugar producers and the shortage of its supply on the domestic market.
“Since today the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine has initiated a case and is investigating a cartel agreement, we can conclude that it has reason to assume a cartel agreement,” the head of the association said.
According to him, the supply of sugar in Ukraine after the sugar-making season, together with the transition residues from last year, is 1.2 million tonnes with its internal consumption at the level of 1.5 million tonnes. Even taking into account the import of 40,000 tonnes of white sugar from Europe within the existing quota, as well as the import of raw sugar, the deficit of this product is still 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes.
Baldyniuk said the way out of this situation is the adoption by the MPs of bill No. 5673 on the establishment of a tariff quota for the import of white sugar into Ukraine. According to him, a temporary permit for duty-free import of 60,000 tonnes of sugar from the EU will balance supply and demand for it in the country, while not creating losses for the sugar industry.
Motor Sich (Zaporizhia) will supply four D-436-148FM aircraft engines to Antonov state-owned enterprise and 14 helicopter engines to Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAS), the corresponding contracts were signed in June.
According to a report in the ProZorro system, the amount of the contract concluded on June 15 with Antonov State Enterprise is UAH 414.99 million (UAH 86.46 million per engine), while two engines, subject to timely advance payment, must be delivered on DDP terms until the end this year and two more – until the end of October next year.
According to the agreement signed with TUSAS on June 26, Motor Sich will supply engines for attacking heavy-class helicopters, the Turkish side said in a statement. According to the report, the delivery of the first two engines is expected in September 2022, and the first flight of these helicopters is scheduled for 2023. The entire contract is valid until 2025.
There is no information about the cost of the Turkish contract yet.
PJSC Motor Sich is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of engines for aviation equipment, as well as industrial gas turbine units. It supplies products to more than 100 countries around the world.
Experts estimate the average cost of 1 hectare of agricultural land after the opening of the land market on July 1 at $2,200, by the end of the year its cost will reach $2,500/ha, co-founder of the Land Club association of land investors Oleksandr Kolotilin has told Interfax-Ukraine.
“The start of the market is on average planned at the level of $2,200 per ha. But at the same time, it must be clearly understood that the agricultural land market existed before July 1, 2021. Still, 5 million hectares of land allocated within the framework of free privatization for private farming for all the years of Ukraine’s independence is also a sufficient amount of land. Thus, the price of land that was under the moratorium correlates with the market that has existed all this time,” Kolotilin, who in 2017-2019 was the acting head of the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre, said.
He clarified that the opening of the land market will be beneficial primarily to its sellers, since at the first stage of the land reform implementation there will be no more than 10% of the total number of interested parties who want to sell their shares.
“Since there are many more people who want to buy or invest in agricultural land today than offers, this will gradually push the price up. I do not think that by January 1, 2022 the situation will change dramatically, but it is definitely worth expecting an increase in prices. On average, the price will reach the level of $2,500/ha,” the expert noted.
According to him, in different regions and even different districts of the same region, the cost of land differs quite strongly.
“If, for example, in the north and center of Ukraine land prices are high and growing, in the south, in the zone of risky agriculture, in the zone of difficult access to moisture, where there is the need for serious investments in land reclamation, they are lower. Today the average price in central Ukraine is $2,000-2,500, in the north – $1,700-2,200, and in Kherson region I’m not sure that someone will pay more than $1,000 per hectare without access to moisture,” he noted.
The expert said that he does not expect a rush to buy land in specific regions. According to him, the greatest demand for agricultural land will remain in the central, northern and western parts of Ukraine.
The decline in the incidence of the coronavirus (COVID-19) disease in Ukraine is slowing down, but there is currently no high risk of an increase, experts from Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) have said.
“The situation with the incidence in Ukraine continues to decline in terms of the number of detected cases. At the same time, the decline rate is slowing down,” Head of KSE Center for Health Economics Yuriy Hanychenko said during an online presentation of an analysis of the situation with the spread of COVID-19.
At the same time, he said that an outbreak of the disease in the country is possible in July-August – everything will depend on how the situation with the spread of the British, South African and Indian strains of the virus will develop in Ukraine.
“However, in the next week or two, we do not expect a significant increase in the incidence,” Hanychenko said.
According to him, the average daily number of deaths in Ukraine continues to decline and amounts to 31 deaths per day.
“The number of hospitalizations has stopped declining and reached a plateau. This may be the result of a long weekend. At the same time, discharges continue to exceed hospitalizations by more than 1.5 times. The number of patients with COVID-19 is reduced by 20% per week. This week, there was an increase in the level of hospitalizations in Luhansk region by over 60%, but this growth was technical,” Hanychenko said.
At the same time, he noted that three regions need to increase the number of tests.
“In Kyiv, Luhansk and Khmelnytsky regions, the level of testing is falling. It is very dangerous due to the fact that the Delta strain was detected in Ukraine last week. In Kyiv and Luhansk regions, along with the reduction in testing, the detection rate is growing,” Hanychenko said.
KSE said that Ukraine needs to triple the pace of vaccination in order to reach the European level.
“The pace of vaccination in Ukraine is increasing – by a third over the past week. Thanks to this, the lag behind the average European pace of vaccination has decreased, but it still remains high [by three times]. Ukraine needs to triple the pace, there is a vaccine for this,” Hanychenko said.
He said that currently in Ukraine about 62,000 people are vaccinated on average per day. To vaccinate 70% of the population of Ukraine, it is necessary to vaccinate more than 225,000 people daily.
The negative balance of Ukraine’s foreign trade in goods in January-June 2021 decreased by 8.36%, to $1.25 billion with an increase in exports of almost 30.3%, to $29.97 billion, imports – by 28.4%, to $31.22 billion, according to data from the State Customs Service.
“Exports for the six months of 2021 grew by 30.27% compared to the first half of last year and amounted to $29.97 billion. But the main thing is an even smaller negative balance than last year. Some $1.25 billion – 8.36% less than last year,” Deputy Minister of Economy – Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka said on Facebook.
At the same time, the trade representative pointed out that, compared with the indicator for the first half of 2019, before the effect of the pandemic, exports for the first half of 2021 grew by 22%. As of July 1, 2019, foreign trade deficit was $3.16 billion.
“So we have two years of reduction in the negative balance by 60% (from $3.16 billion to $1.25 billion),” Kachka said.
Kachka also noted an increase in exports to the EU by 45% in January-June-2021, to $12.3 billion, and compared to the first half of 2019, the growth is 20%.
“Exports to China are also growing at a similar rate of 42.4% compared to the first half of last year, but compared to the first half of 2019, this is already a fantastic 175% (from $1.56 billion to $4.28 billion),” he said.
The trade representative also noted that according to the results of the first half of the year, Ukraine recorded a positive balance of trade with Turkey – $460 million, compared with a negative balance of $80 million in January-June 2020. At the same time, Ukraine during the specified reporting period of this year raised exports to Turkey by 51%, to $1.79 billion, which is explained by the boom in commodities in light of the economic recovery.
“But it’s worth paying attention to industrial goods (my favorite groups are 84 + 85, where all electrical and mechanical equipment is grouped). We traditionally have a negative balance for these groups. But exports in the first half of the year grew by 32%, to $2.4 billion. And this is also $366 million more than in the first half of 2019,” the official said.
He also drew attention to the growth of furniture exports by 56.2% compared to the first half of 2019 and by 73.6% compared to January-June 2020. Although, in general, this is a relatively small export item – for the six months of 2021, Ukraine exported furniture worth $510 million (94 product groups).
