Unemployment in the euro zone in December last year amounted to 6.3% compared to the all-time low of 6.2% a month earlier, the statistical office of the European Union said. Analysts had also expected 6.3%, according to Trading Economics. The November level, meanwhile, was revised up from 6.3%. By comparison, unemployment was 6.5% in December 2023.
The number of unemployed in the region rose by 96,000 in December from the previous month to a three-month high of 10.83 million.
The unemployment rate among young people (population under 25) fell to 14.8% from 14.9%.
The lowest unemployment rate among the largest eurozone countries was recorded in Germany (3.4%, the same as a month earlier), the highest – in Spain (10.6% vs. 10.7% in November). In France, unemployment in December increased by 0.1 percentage points and reached 7.8%, in Italy – increased by 0.3 p.p. to 6.2%.
In the European Union as a whole, unemployment stood at 5.9% last month, up from 5.8% in November. It stood at 6% in December 2023.
Earlier, the Experts Club think tank and Maxim Urakin released a video analysis on the state of the economy and debt in the world, see more on the YouTube channel:
In 2024, Metinvest Mining and Metallurgical Group, including its associates and joint ventures, increased its payments to the budgets of all levels in Ukraine by 36% compared to 2023, to UAH 19.8 billion.
According to the company’s press release on Thursday, Metinvest has continued to support the country’s economy for almost three years of full-scale war.
The largest payment in terms of volume is the subsoil use fee, which has more than doubled year-on-year to UAH 5 billion. The second largest was the unified social tax of UAH 3.7 billion, up 13%. The top three largest payments include UAH 3.4 billion in personal income tax, which is 11% higher than in 2023.
In addition, Metinvest’s Ukrainian enterprises paid UAH 2.6 billion in corporate income tax last year, which is 20% less than in the previous year. Land payments increased by 6% year-on-year to UAH 1.3 billion, and environmental tax by 18% to UAH 717 million.
“The war increases the level of responsibility of business to the army, the economy and every Ukrainian. Despite all the challenges, we have not only maintained stability but also managed to reach the tax payment level of 2022, when we had a certain pre-war safety margin. This demonstrates our ability to adapt and find new opportunities. “Metinvest remains one of the largest taxpayers and private donors to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and we continue to support the country in these difficult times,” said Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of Metinvest.
As reported, Metinvest increased its tax payments by 38% to UAH 15.2 billion in the first nine months of 2024. In the first half of 2024, the Group increased its tax payments by one and a half times to UAH 10 billion. In total, in 2023, the company paid UAH 14.6 billion to the state budget.
“Metinvest is a vertically integrated group of steel and mining companies. The group’s enterprises are mainly located in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro regions. The main shareholders of the holding are SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%), which jointly manage it.
Metinvest Holding LLC is the management company of Metinvest Group.
After the transfer of shares in the First Investment Bank (PinBank) to Ukrposhta, the company will offer minority shareholders who own about 12% of the shares a buyout procedure, and in case of refusal, it will “dilute” their share to 5% by applying the compulsory purchase procedure, the company’s CEO Igor Smelyansky said in an exclusive interview withInterfax-Ukraine.
“We have to consolidate the remaining 12% of the bank’s shares, which are currently owned by minority shareholders,” he said.
According to him, an independent appraiser will be engaged to assess the bank’s current capitalization and thus determine the market price of the stakes held by minority shareholders.
“This is the amount we will offer them. Of course, it is their right to accept or refuse. If they refuse, Ukrposhta, as the majority shareholder of the bank, will have the opportunity to decide to increase the bank’s capital. Accordingly, the share of minority shareholders may be “diluted” to almost 5%. This will make it possible to apply the procedure of compulsory redemption of shares. That is why our plan is quite clear and irreversible,” explained Smelyansky.
He also said that at the first stage of the bank’s integration into Ukrposhta’s structure, operational and IT audits will be conducted, and the supervisory board and team of Ukrposhta Bank will be formed.
“We already understand that we will need to invest in the creation of modern and reliable IT systems of the bank. We also have to carry out preparatory work at Ukrposhta to integrate the bank into the existing infrastructure. We need to form a team, and, objectively, we need a new team to fulfill the range of tasks we set,” Smelyansky said.
As reported, according to information on the PINbank website, as of February 9, 2023, the second shareholder after Yevhen Giner, who owned 88.890583%, was Oleksandr Shadruk’s Ukrpravo Law Firm LLC with a share of 9.509417%, while the remaining shareholders had 1.6%. However, the Renome venture capital non-diversified closed-end investment fund managed by Renome-2008 Asset Management Company LLC reported an increase in its stake in PINbank from 1.6% to 5.9478%, while Ukrprav’s stake decreased to 5.0929%. In addition, on February 6, 2023, the National Bank of Ukraine decided to transfer the voting rights on Giner’s shares to its trustee Gennadiy Mykhaylenko.
At the end of September 2023, PINbank ranked 57th among 63 Ukrainian banks in terms of total assets (UAH 482 million). Its net loss for 9 months of 2022 amounted to UAH 30 million, but due to the bank’s liquidity, the issue of its transfer to the DGF was not raised at the moment.
A memorandum on the merger of the Ukrainian Pulses Association and the Ukrainian Soybean Association and the creation of a new Ukrainian Pulses Association was signed in Kyiv on Thursday as part of World Pulses Day.
The heads of the associations expressed confidence that the merger will allow them to concentrate resources, join forces and work out a unified development strategy for the pulses industry.
“It is very important for us that the associations are effective and that business moves forward. We are now at the stage of transformation, because we see the importance of pulses. And this season, we see sunflower being supplemented with soybeans in processing. This means that livestock farming will develop in parallel,” said Vitalii Koval, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food.
According to him, in 2024, Ukraine increased exports of soybeans by 4.8% to $1.3 billion, which is 1.6 times or $115 million more than in 2023.
The Minister expressed confidence that with the unification of the two associations, these percentages will increase. He also emphasized the importance of initiatives that should come from business and said that officials would be waiting for new proposals.
Antonina Skliarenko, President of the Bean and Soybean Association of Ukraine, stated that the pulses sector in Ukraine is growing. In 2024, the country harvested 469 thsd tonnes of peas from the area of 212.3 thsd ha, and exports amounted to 364 thsd tonnes. It is expected that in 2025 the area under peas will grow by 20%, and under lentils – by 10-15%. Further expansion of soybean areas is also forecasted.
“The united association is a logical step in the development of the industry, as Ukrainian producers of pulses and soybeans face increased competition in international markets, the need to adapt to European standards and introduce innovations to improve efficiency,” Skliarenko summarized.
In 2025, Agro-Region will increase its total budget for the purchase of inventory by 15%, the company’s press service reported on Facebook.
“The total budget for inventories in 2025 will increase by 15%, but this is due to a change in crop rotation: we are increasing the share of corn, which is a more expensive crop. If we consider the costs of each crop separately, the growth will be about 5%, but this is not due to prices, but to the use of more expensive technology (more fertilizers and more expensive plant protection products),” said Dmytro Tarasyuk, Chief Procurement Officer of the agricultural holding.
According to him, fertilizers always account for the largest share of costs in the procurement structure. In the 2025 season, they are about twice as expensive as seeds, fuel or pesticides. However, thanks to early purchases, Agro-Region was able to save significantly on fertilizers. The agroholding purchased most of the fertilizers in June 2024, at the “bottom of the price”. This helped to avoid a shortage of phosphate fertilizers that occurred in July and August, as well as additional costs, as nitrogen fertilizer prices rose by 25% by January. The agricultural holding also split the purchase of nitrogen fertilizers into two parts to avoid financial burden and spread risks.
Tarasiuk noted that Agro-Region also purchases seeds in advance. As early as November 2024, 90% of the need was contracted, taking advantage of the maximum discounts for early contracting. The remaining 10% are test hybrids that the agricultural division is testing.
“We also purchase plant protection products (PPPs) as early as possible, especially seed treatment products, soil herbicides and growth regulators. In addition, we create an “emergency” stock of herbicides and insecticides for possible force majeure, such as the unforeseen appearance of pests. This allows us to be flexible in our production processes,” said the head of the division.
He also said that after the outbreak of war, Agro-Region increased its own fuel storage capacity, which made it possible to ensure seasonal operations even in crisis conditions. Currently, the agricultural holding has about 20% of the fuel requirements for the spring sowing season.
“Unfortunately, oil prices remain at $80 per barrel, so we decided to postpone major purchases. We are watching the market and may switch to spot purchases in small batches this year, as it is likely that the later we buy, the cheaper it will be,” summarized the agricultural holding’s procurement director.
Agro-Region owns a land bank of 39 thousand hectares in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr and Khmelnytsky regions. It specializes in crop production. It consists of 11 companies organized into four crop production clusters. It has two elevators – Boryspil elevator with a capacity of 73 thousand tons and Miropil elevator with a capacity of 52 thousand tons.
Agro-Region’s annual harvest of grains and oilseeds is up to 200 thousand tons.
In April 2021, the Swedish company Lobiu Sala AB, owned by the former Minister of Economy of Ukraine Aivaras Abromavičius, received permission from the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine to buy the Swedish Agro Region Stockholm Holding, which manages the Agro-Region group of companies in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s total public debt in 2024 rose to a new all-time high: by $22.74 billion, or 14.3%, to $166.06 billion in dollar terms, and by UAH 1 trillion 461.3 billion, or 26.5%, to UAH 6 trillion 980.9 billion in hryvnia terms, according to the website of the Ministry of Finance.
According to the data, the direct public debt increased by 16.5% in dollars to $159.20 billion, or UAH 6 trillion 692.4 billion, and accounted for 95.9% of the total public and publicly guaranteed debt.
In 2024, Ukraine’s total external public debt increased by 18.1%, or by $18.38 billion, to $114.88 billion, while the total internal public debt increased by 16.7%, or by UAH 276.0 billion, to UAH 1 trillion 863.1 billion.
As a result, the share of total external public debt increased from 70.0% to 72.3% over the year.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the share of liabilities in euros at the end of 2024 increased to 33.01%, in US dollars to 26.81%, in SDRs to 11.39%, in Canadian dollars to 2.83%, in British pounds to 0.11%, while in hryvnia it decreased to 25.33% and in yen to 0.51%.
The agency also clarified that 65.01% of the state debt has a fixed interest rate, while 11.39% is tied to the IMF rate, 12.66% to SOFR, 3.80% to EURIBOR, 0.51% to TORF and 0.10% to SONIA.
The rate for another 2.08% of government debt is tied to the consumer price index, and 4.17% to the NBU discount rate. These are government bonds from the NBU’s portfolio. The newest of these were the securities linked to the key policy rate, which the NBU bought as part of the issue financing of the 2022 budget.
Finally, 0.27% of the state debt has a rate linked to the Ukrainian index of rates on retail deposits, which is used in portfolio guarantee programs.
The Ministry of Finance previously noted that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to a sharp increase in the ratio of public debt to GDP – from 43.3% at the end of 2021 to 79.4% at the end of 2023.
As reported, Ukraine’s public and publicly guaranteed debt increased by $13.4 billion in 2022 and by $33.9 billion in 2023.
The IMF, as part of the sixth review of the EFF Extended Fund Facility program with Ukraine last December, improved its forecast for public debt growth due to higher GDP growth and lower deficits: to 92.2% of GDP by the end of 2024 and to 104.3% by the end of 2025, while in October it estimated it at 95.6% of GDP and 106.6% of GDP, respectively.
Earlier, the Experts Club think tank and Maxim Urakin released a video analysis on the state of debt in the world, see more details on the YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/gq7twYrWuqE
