The spouse of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, Prince Philip, has passed away at the age of 99, two months before his 100th birthday, a statement released by Buckingham Palace Friday reads.
“It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle,” the Palace’s statement reads.
Ukrainian woodworkers have proposed that 50% of unprocessed timber is sold at electronic auctions and 50% is sold under long-term contracts on the term of the offer, aiming at stable development of forestry and support of deep processing of wood.
The concept, proposed for amending a bill on the wood market, was announced by Director General of Kronospan Ukraine LLC Natalia Pokinska at a press conference organized by the InvestRivne agency in Kyiv on Thursday.
According to her, industry representatives are proposing a “cascade” principle of holding auctions on electronic platforms, i.e. they can be of four types: basic, additional, repeated and additional repeated.
At the same time, the participants in the main auctions should be woodworking enterprises that have submitted a declaration on the relevant activity and are included in the register of wood processing entities, and the participants in the additional ones – buyers of wood for needs not related to processing and production of products from it, as well as manufacturers of wood chips and companies that use timber as an alternative source of energy, biofuel producers and nonresidents.
“If we compare an entity that buys raw materials for the production of chipboard and a buyer for biofuel production, they are also in different categories for government support, since the energy industry provides for certain subsidies, and such buyers can pay more for raw materials and compete with the real sector which deeply processes wood,” Pokinska said.
Regarding the conclusion of contracts for the sale of timber on the term of the offer, industry representatives also propose to conduct them on a transparent electronic platform (“forest portal”), and publish the results automatically after the offer was approved to avoid accusations of non-transparency or behind-the-scenes of the process.
“We have analyzed the laws of other states, EU directives, and we can say that such a cascade is a guarantee of deeper processing of raw materials with high added value,” the director general of the company said.
A Memorandum of Cooperation between the Kharkiv City Council and the Turkish bus manufacturing company Karsan was signed in Kharkiv during the international forum Municipal Infrastructure: Urban Development and Comfort.
The press service of the Kharkiv City Council said, citing Secretary Ihor Terekhov, that it is planned to purchase about 500 Turkish-made buses within several years. This will become the basis for the creation of municipal bus public transport, as well as to start joint production of buses in Kharkiv.
“We have agreed with our Turkish partners that these buses will be assembled in our city. For this we will create about 300 jobs. Turkish investors will decide on the basis of which enterprise this will take place. But negotiations with local business are already underway. For Kharkiv this is an economically viable project,” the press service said, citing Terekhov.
According to him, about 150 buses of different classes (8-meter buses for rush hour traffic and 6-meter buses for transportation when traffic is less) are planned to be purchased by the end of the year. These are low-floor buses with hufter-proof coating.
The volume of mortgage lending in February 2021 amounted to UAH 457.9 million, which is 40% more than in January and 81% more than in February 2020, according to the results of a survey of banks conducted by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
According to the report, 617 mortgage loans were issued in February, which is 39% more than a month earlier and 35% more than in the same period last year.
According to the survey, almost 89% of mortgage agreements in the amount of UAH 380 million in February were drawn up with five banks, which indicates the concentration of the mortgage lending market.
The NBU noted that in February, the volume of issuance for the purchase of primary real estate increased by 13% or UAH 7.7 million, to UAH 66.9 million, and on the secondary market – by 47% or UAH 124.2 million, to UAH 388.45 million.
According to the survey results, the secondary market continues to dominate significantly in terms of the number and volume of lending, in particular, the share of mortgage agreements for the purchase of housing in the secondary market in February amounted to about 85% in terms of all new loans.
In the reporting period, the average effective rate of mortgage loans in the secondary market was 13.9% (in January – 13.8%), and in the primary market – 17.1% (in January -15.9%). A noticeable increase in the cost of loans in the primary market in February was due to an increase in the share of new loans in the market of one of the banks active in mortgage lending, which offers borrowers a relatively high effective interest rate, the regulator explained.
According to the NBU, in a regional context, most mortgage loans in February were issued in Kyiv – 171 agreements totaling UAH 177 million (39% of the total), in Kyiv region – 84 agreements totaling UAH 78.5 million (17%), in Kharkiv region – 76 contracts for a total amount of almost 43 million UAH (9%), in Lviv region – 36 contracts for a total amount of UAH 28.3 million and in Dnipropetrovsk region – 45 contracts for a total amount of UAH 24.2 million.
The loan portfolio of entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) of state-owned Ukrgasbank (Kyiv) in the first quarter of 2021 increased by UAH 1.4 billion, or by 17.5%, to UAH 8 billion, the bank’s press service said on Thursday.
According to the report, the increase in the portfolio is due to the active participation of the bank in the state program Affordable Loans 5-7-9%” and new business lending programs. In particular, as of early April, Ukrgasbank’s portfolio of affordable loans is UAH 2 billion, including UAH 1.2 billion of loans for investment purposes.
The press service said that in the first week of April, the bank increased its portfolio of energy efficiency (warm) loans by UAH 14.6 million, or 7.3%, to UAH 200 million. At the same time, the number of such loans increased by 371, or by 2.8%, to 13,310.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine, as of January 1, 2021, Ukrgasbank in terms of total assets (UAH 151.403 billion) ranked fourth among 73 banks operating in the country.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) is investigating the formation of prices in the transportation market due to a sharp price rise for the services of the main players in the taxi market on the first day of lockdown, Head of the Northern Territorial Branch of the AMCU Oleksiy Khmelnytsky said on his Facebook page on Wednesday.
He said that on the first day of lockdown, the prices for taxi services of the three largest organizers of transportation via mobile applications simultaneously increased by 3-4 times, which is unacceptable.
“Already in the evening of April 6, taxi prices fell noticeably. It should be noted that the demand did not decrease [there were no less trips, the demand was constant] and lockdown was not canceled. This is the reaction of these companies to the indignation of Kyiv residents, the media and the AMCU’s reaction. I am convinced that companies can adjust prices on their own, not only automatically, given the critical situation with COVID-19 in Kyiv. Could there be any signs of violation of competition laws [on coordination of actions]? In my opinion, yes,” Khmelnytsky said.
He also said that the AMCU should definitely respond to a large number of appeals from Kyiv residents.
“We cannot ignore citizens’ appeals; that is why we launched our probe. This is the law […] In fact; the situation on the transport market [whatever you call it, for people it is taxi services] has not been studied by anyone. That is why we started the study. We will draw conclusions based on its findings,” he said.
At the same time, Khmelnytsky noted that the AMCU perfectly understands all the specifics of the work of programs and applications, which are rather difficult to control.
According to him, if, based on the findings of the study, the AMCU does not receive evidence of anticompetitive concerted actions of the largest market players, the committee will definitely inform about it.
“If we get evidence of a violation of competition legislation, we will open a case, make a decision and fine the violators. If it turns out that the legislation and rules do not correspond to modern technologies, we will turn to legislators with a proposal,” the head of the AMCU Northern Territorial Branch said.
As reported, on April 5, taking into account the imposition of strict quarantine, prices for taxi services, in particular in Kyiv, increased several times.
Bolt taxi ordering service (formerly Taxify) has decided to forcefully adjust the coefficient that affects the increase in cost during the period of increased demand.
Taxi ordering services Uklon and Uber told Interfax-Ukraine that their pricing systems depend on many factors, automatically taking into account the situation on the roads, weather conditions, demand and others.
ANTIMONOPOLY COMMITTEE, LOCKDOWN, TAXI, TAXI MARKET, TRANSPORT
