Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is ready to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Hungarian Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyás.
“Ukraine is a very important neighbor of Hungary. Therefore, we are ready to meet. It rests with Ukraine to decide,” Gulyás said in an interview with Varosh published on Thursday.
He stressed that there are no additional conditions for this meeting.
“The Hungarian Prime Minister is ready to meet with Volodymyr Zelensky,” Gulyás added.
TOP 20 COUNTRIES UKRAINE HAS POSTED THE HIGHEST SURPLUS OF TRADE IN GOODS IN JAN-FEB 2021 (THSD USD)
The Cabinet of Ministers expects the hryvnia exchange rate in the range of UAH 28 or UAH 29 per $1 in 2022-2023 and inflation will decrease to 6.2% in 2022 and 5% in 2023, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
The head of government said the relevant indicators are laid down in the Budget Declaration and the 2022-2024 Forecast of Economic and Social Development, approved by the government.
“The growth of salaries in the next three years will be approximately 8% to 10% per year (taking into account inflation). Inflation will return to the target of 5% in 2023, and it will be 6.2% in 2022,” Shmyhal said.
According to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, the approved documents provide for the reduction of the budget deficit by almost half and the return of this indicator to the planned 3% in 2023.
“The public debt is planned to be reduced to less than 50% of GDP,” Shmyhal said.
At the same time, from 2023, Ukraine will be able to enter a stable trend of economic development by 5% per year, he said.
Metinvest, the largest Ukrainian mining and metallurgical holding, in 2020 ranked 45th in the list of the world’s largest steel producers with a volume of 10.16 million tonnes compared to the 42nd place in 2017-2019, when it produced 9.59 million tonnes, 9.37 million tonnes and 9.58 million tonnes, respectively.
According to the annual compilation published by the World Steel Association (Worldsteel), China Baowu Group became the largest steel company last year with 115.29 million tonnes, and ArcelorMittal dropped to the second place from the first position with 78.46 million tonnes.
They are followed by Shagang Group with 41.59 million tonnes, Nippon Steel with 41.58 million tonnes, HBIS Group with 43.76 million tonnes, and POSCO with 40.58 million tonnes.
There are no Ukrainian companies in the list of the 50 largest world steel producers in 2020, as well as in 2014-2019, except for Metinvest. Industrial Union of Donbas corporation (ISD), which ranked 44th in 2013 with a production volume of 7.9 million tonnes, dropped out of the list of leaders.
According to Worldsteel, Ukraine produced 20.6 million tonnes of steel in 2020 and ranked 12th.
The Ukrainian Restaurant Association welcomes bill No. 5590 on amendments to the Tax Code to reduce the value added tax rate for the restaurant industry and catering services from 20% to 7%.
According to the association, about 63% of the restaurateurs surveyed by it expect business development due to the VAT reduction, and 19% of respondents intend to reorganize into an LLC if such an amendment to the code is adopted.
“Catering establishments often use the individual entrepreneur system for selling food and the LLC system for selling alcohol. This creates a number of difficulties for the restaurateurs themselves – the impossibility of maintaining civilized transparent relations with banks in terms of obtaining loans, limiting cashless payments with retail chains, the complexity of administering the tax payment process,” President of the Ukrainian Restaurant Association Serhiy Trakhachev said.
“Today there is a huge demand from the industry itself for the transition to a civilized and transparent form of existence. But this request is limited by a significant tax burden, in particular the need to pay VAT at the standard level of 20%,” he said.
So, the adoption of the amendments will allow increasing working capital in the restaurant sector and save jobs. According to the association, due to the coronavirus pandemic and quarantine restrictions, the volume of the restaurant market in Ukraine in 2020 decreased by a third and amounted to UAH 14.1 billion, almost all market players reduced their revenue.
