TOP 20 COUNTRIES UKRAINE HAS POSTED THE HIGHEST SURPLUS OF TRADE IN GOODS IN Jan 2021 (thSd USD)
A total of 92% of Ukrainians intend to celebrate Easter on May 2, almost 20% of the adult population will go to church, according to the results of an all-Ukrainian public opinion poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology on April 13-15, 2021. According to the study, 92% of the population plan to celebrate Easter in one way or another, only 6% will not celebrate (and 2% were undecided).
Among the adult population of Ukraine, every fifth (19%) plans to go to church on Easter, and 9% plan to take part in the service.
The majority of Ukrainian population does not plan to go to church at Easter. Some 69% of Ukrainians plan to cook Easter dishes at home, 25% plan to pray in the family circle, and 19% plan to receive guests from relatives at home.
Also, according to the survey, among the entire population of Ukraine, 11% will go to the cemetery; some 8% will go on a visit within their city; some 5% will go on a visit outside their city.
The largest number of those who plan to go to church to bless Easter cakes is observed in the western region (29%), in all other regions this number is slightly less: 19% in the South, 15% in the Center, 12% in the East. Some 18% of Ukrainians aged 18-29, some 19% of those aged 40-49, some 22% of Ukrainians 50-59 years old and 60+ will go to bless Easter food in church; the lowest percentage, 15%, is among the category 30-39 years old.
The largest number of those who plan to cook Easter meals with their families is also in the western region (73%); in the center and south it is 69%, in the east – 63%.
A total of 8% of residents of the East do not plan to celebrate Easter, there are 7% of those in the center, 6% in the South, and 5% in the West. The number of those who do not plan to celebrate Easter decreases with age: in the age group of 18-29 years they make 13%, in the group of 30-39 and 40-49 years – 7% and 6% respectively, in the group of 50-59 and 60+ years – 4% and 3%, respectively.
The survey was conducted by the method of computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) on the basis of a random sample of mobile phone numbers, 2,001 respondents living in all regions of Ukraine (except for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea) were interviewed. The sample is representative of the adult population (aged 18 and over) in Ukraine. The sample does not include territories that are temporarily not controlled by Ukrainian authorities – the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
The statistical error of the sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.1) does not exceed 2.4%.
JTI Ukraine tobacco company plans to invest $45 million in the expansion and renovation of the production facilities of its factory in Kremenchuk in 2021-2022, General Manager of Japan Tobacco International (JTI) Ukraine Paul Holloway has said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
“This is the modernization of the entire production complex, and not an investment in a separate production line, as it was the case two years ago. The plans for this year are the expansion of the factory, the construction of a new warehouse, the modernization of the tobacco shop, new production lines, the modernization of buildings, structures, infrastructure and much more,” he said.
According to Holloway, the company intends to increase the export of tobacco products, and make it more efficient. An important factor that influenced the company’s plans was its obtaining the status of an Authorized Economic Operator (AEO), which will reduce customs formalities for the import of raw materials and the export of finished products.
The general manager of the company said that JTI, which received this status for the first time in Ukraine, will have a number of advantages when going through customs clearance in Ukraine, including the opportunity to use a special traffic lane for commercial vehicles.
Holloway said that in 2020, the company paid six times more dividends than in the entire history of JTI’s work in Ukraine, and the investments provided for the development of the factory will not affect the further payment of dividends to shareholders. According to him, the factory in Kremenchuk is an independent center of profit, and it will provide money that it earned earlier for investments.
JTI paid out more than UAH 300 million in dividends to shareholders for 2018-2019 and plans to pay about the same amount for 2020.
A large Ukrainian manufacturer of agricultural machinery, JSC Plant Fregat (Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv region) ended 2020 with a net loss of UAH 470,000, while in 2019 it was UAH 26.5 million.
According to the financial statements of the enterprise, published on Tuesday in the information disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission, last year it increased its net income by 21.7%, to UAH 479.23 million.
According to the information of the plant, 53% of the total volume of manufactured products fell on for safety barriers roads and metal structures, 32% – the production of agricultural machinery for crop production, and other types of products accounted for 15%.
The enterprise exports road safety barriers to Germany, the Netherlands, China, the CIS countries; and agricultural machinery is mainly exported to the CIS countries.
Plant Fregat offers complex solutions in the field of irrigation systems, road barriers, metal structures for various purposes, as well as mechanical engineering products.
The agricultural machinery of the enterprise is included in the list of agricultural machinery, upon purchase of which 25% of its cost is compensated to the agrarians from the state budget.
This year, the plant also expects to expand the geography of deliveries of irrigation machines, in particular, an agreement has been signed for the supply of 50 machines to Uzbekistan, and deliveries are planned to Kyrgyzstan. Also, work is underway to establish cooperation with the farmers of Romania, Bulgaria and expand partnership with Poland.
Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Roman Leshchenko called the adoption of bill No. 2194 on amendments to the Land Code of Ukraine fateful, and the implementation of land reform will become a real indicator of changes for the better in the country. “Now the right to dispose land has been transferred to local communities finally and irrevocably. From now on, the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre is only a service organization, the most deregulated, with the elimination of corruption powers in land management,” he wrote on Facebook.
The minister said that bill No. 2194 provides for the reform of the management system in the field of land relations and the removal of artificial restrictions on economic activity to simplify access to land resources for the population and business; cancellation of unnecessary permits and duplication of checks of land management documentation; as well as introduction of independent control over land management documentation through public expertise or peer review.
According to him, other key points of the document are the provision of the status of public, open and public data to the information contained in the documentation on land management; integration and unification of land management, topographic, geodetic and cartographic activities; introduction of professional liability insurance for land management workers as an alternative to state control; reducing the cost of work and the length of time spent on the implementation of procedures related to land management; and reducing the risk of bribery and corruption.
“This is a historically fateful event, one of the most important laws in my life, which confirms the inevitability of land reform, for which I am responsible in our state,” the minister said.
As reported, the Verkhovna Rada approved amendments to the Land Code and other laws to improve the management and deregulation system in land relations.
Estonian financial technology company SupplierPlus has launched a reverse factoring platform for supply chain financing in Ukraine and opened reverse factoring limits for Ukrainian companies in the amount of UAH 100 million.
As stated in the SupplierPlus report, the company expects that in 2021 the limit of factoring financing on its platform can range from UAH 500 million to UAH 1 billion.
“We hope that in the coming years this market [of factoring] will grow from today’s 0.2-0.3% of GDP to at least 5% and Ukraine will approach its Western partners in terms of trade finance development,” Chief of Party of the USAID Financial Sector Transformation Project Robert Bond said during the SupplierPlus conference on Wednesday.
It is indicated that the partners of the reverse factoring program are OTP Bank, MTB Bank, Agroprosperis Bank, Ternopil Dairy Plant (Molokia brand), Buchachagrokhlibprom, Gadz farm and Ramburs grain trader.
The company said that the factoring reform in Ukraine could close the gap of EUR 1.5-3.4 billion in the market for financing receivables in Ukraine.
SupplierPlus Group OÜ is a financial technology company that specializes in supply chain finance solutions. The group was established in Estonia in 2015 with the launch of the financial platform Inwise.co for paying bills in the P2P format.
