Initial registrations of electric vehicles (new and used) in Ukraine in 2020 decreased by 1% (or 87 units) compared to 2019, to 7,455 units, including 91.3% used cars (6,803), according to the Ukrautoprom association.
According to the data on its website, 7,095 passenger cars (of which only 9% are new), 359 commercial vehicles (3% new) and one electric bus (manufactured in 2019) were registered over the year.
At the same time, the average age of the used electric registered passenger cars was five years last year, of commercial vehicles seven years.
Thus, compared to 2019, the registration of used cars in 2020 decreased by 2% (by 135 cars), and new ones increased by 8% (or by 48 cars).
The most popular electric vehicle in Ukraine remains Nissan Leaf with 2,180 registrations, the second place is taken by Tesla Model 3 (some 865 cars), and the third by Tesla Model S (753 cars). The fourth position is taken by Chevrolet Bolt with 474 registrations, and the Tesla Model X closes the top five most popular zero-emission vehicles with 366 registrations per year.
The best result for new electric vehicle sales was shown by Audi E-Tron, which was chosen by 122 buyers.
The commercial electric vehicle market was dominated by Renault Kangoo Z.E. with 304 registrations, including only seven new ones.
The association also said that in December 2020, the Ukrainian vehicle fleet was replenished with 632 electric vehicles, which is 8% more than a year earlier, including 598 cars (more by 7% compared to December 2019) and 34 commercial (more by 36%).
The share of used cars in December last year in the passenger segment was 86%, in the commercial segment 97%.
The bottom retail price for Ukrainian sparkling wines, carbonated wines, fermented drinks, flavored sparkling (carbonated) wines (drinks) has been increased from UAH 89 to UAH 109 per 0.7-0.75 liter bottle. The government of Ukraine adopted the respective resolution on January 13.
“As a result, everyone wins: Ukrainian winemakers will become competitive and restore their lost positions in the market. Winegrowers will have a greater demand for their raw materials. Ukrainian consumers will have a high-quality, not falsified, product,” Minister of Economy Ihor Petrashko said in a Thursday press release of the ministry.
According to him, the resolution also brought the description of this product and its codes into line with the Tax Code and the Ukrainian Classifier of Goods for Foreign Economic Activity.
The minister said that the main problem of the sector is that the market is now manipulating the names of products and prices: lower quality imported wine-based drinks are sold at the same price as higher quality Ukrainian sparkling wines.
According to Petrashko, national producers have lost 40% of the sparkling wines market, and therefore there is a threat of closing Ukrainian wineries. The adopted resolution eliminates all manipulations and settles the issues that “the price should match quality,” the minister said.
The State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine will allow the import of books from the Russian Federation to Ukrainian territory, referring to the law adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in 2016, the press service of the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting reported.
“The issuance of permits for the import of books from the Russian Federation into the territory of Ukraine is carried out in accordance with the law that was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada at the end of 2016. This law provides that import permits are not granted exclusively to books of anti-Ukrainian content, as well as those containing propaganda in favor of the aggressor state,” the message said.
The department said that over the entire period of the law and, accordingly, the functioning of the licensing system, not a single book of anti-Ukrainian content has entered Ukraine legally, and the volume of books brought from the Russian Federation has decreased 12 times compared to 2011. It is reported that during 2017-2020 the law of the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting made it possible to import into Ukraine 31,000 titles of books from Russia. Most of the books allowed for import are works of world classics, children’s and popular science literature. Part of the permits were issued for the import into Ukraine of Ukrainian-language books by Ukrainian publishing houses, printed in the Russian Federation.
In addition, during 2017-2020, the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting provided 4,274 refusals to importers to import book products from the Russian Federation. Most of the refusals related to the submission of an incomplete package of documents by the applicants, and in 274 cases – anti-Ukrainian content found in publications.
Almost 1.5 million copies of anti-Ukrainian publications were not allowed to be imported into Ukraine. At the same time, the department reported that a complete cessation or restriction of the import of Russian books into the territory of Ukraine is possible only through the adoption of an appropriate law, which would provide for an embargo on their import.
BOOKS, IMPORT, RUSSIAN, UKRAINIAN STATE COMMITTEE ON TELEVISION
NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy in 2020 rendered services to PJSC Gazprom (Russia) in organizing transportation of natural gas through the territory of Ukraine for $ 2.11 billion.
“For 2020, Gazprom fully paid for the annual capacity of the Ukrainian gas transmission system (GTS) for gas transportation. According to the agreement dated December 31, 2019 between Naftogaz and Gazprom, the cost of booking 65 billion cubic meters of annual capacity is $ 2.1 billion. In addition, in the fourth quarter of 2020, Naftogaz additionally rendered services to Gazprom for the use of the Ukrainian gas transportation system, for which it receives over $ 30 million,” the press release of the company said.
According to the company, the total volume of Russian gas transported in 2020 amounted to 55.8 billion cubic meters.
The state-owned enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine negotiated the purchase of a vaccine against COVID-19 with India’s Serum Institute, MP from the Holos faction Oleksandra Ustinova has said with reference to SOE Medical Procurement of Ukraine. According to the response of the SOE to her request, the Ministry of Health has suspended negotiations with the manufacturer.
“Negotiations with manufacturers or potential suppliers of vaccines have been suspended due to the failure to authorize SOE Medical Procurement of Ukraine to act as the recipient of budgetary funds, the lack of appropriations in 2021 for the purchase of vaccines for SOE Medical Procurement of Ukraine and the lack of an approved additional amount of vaccine for the purchase,” MP said.
Ustinova said that the vaccine from Serum Institute was procured for the COVAX global initiative.
In addition, according to her, the cost of a dose of the vaccine from the manufacturer Sinovac, the supply agreement for which was signed by Ukraine, is six times higher than the cost of the Indian vaccine.
Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. specializes in the production of immunobiological preparations, among which, in particular, vaccines against poliomyelitis, measles, hepatitis B, BCG vaccine against tuberculosis, as well as DPT vaccine against whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus.
Earlier, preparations for immunoprophylaxis produced by Serum II were supplied to Ukraine, in particular, the DPT vaccine, and Hib vaccine to prevent Haemophilus influenzae type b. In 2018, the State Service of Ukraine for Medicines and Drug Control imposed a temporary ban on the DTP Serum II series vaccines due to reports of a fatal case following the use of these series. However, later the ban was lifted on the basis of a conclusion of the regional rapid response group (in Ternopil region) regarding the absence of a causal relationship between the death and immunization.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in January improved the forecast for grain exports from Ukraine in the 2020/2021 agricultural year (July-June) by 0.2 million tonnes compared to the December forecast, to 45.81 million tonnes with a yield of 64.21 million tonnes due to a reduction in consumption estimates.
According to the ministry’s monthly report, this concerns crops such as barley, oats, rye, millet and sorghum, while the forecast for wheat and corn is kept unchanged.
In particular, the U.S. Department of Agriculture expects the export of 24 million tonnes of corn with a harvest of 29.5 million tonnes and exports of 17.5 million tonnes of wheat with a harvest of 25.5 million tonnes, respectively.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in the previous agricultural year Ukraine exported 16.02 million tonnes of wheat with a harvest of 25.06 million tonnes, 30.32 million tonnes of corn with a harvest of 35.81 million tonnes, and in general, grain exports amounted to 50.09 million tonnes with a harvest of 69.56 million tonnes.
