President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has signed an Election Code. “On December 27, 2019, [the document] returned with the president’s s signature,” reads a report on the parliament’s website.
Prior to this, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Dmytro Razumkov signed the document and submitted it to the president.
On December 19, Rada accepted all 17 proposals of Zelensky to the Election Code. A total of 330 MPs voted for respective decree No. 0978 in the second reading at its meeting on Thursday.
Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine (GTSOU), which replaced Ukrtransgaz as the operator of the Ukrainian gas transmission system on January 1, 2020, has reported continuation of Russian gas transit under the new agreement reached between Russia’s Gazprom and NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy in furtherance of the previous ten-year contract.
“We have transported the first cubic meters of gas to the EU under the new gas contract consistent with European regulations. The gas transmission system is operating normally,” the operator said in a statement on Facebook on Wednesday.
Ukrainian banks have started posting the results of their stress tests conducted by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) on their websites. So, the state-owned PrivatBank and Ukrgasbank, as well as UkrSibbank, OTP Bank, Credit Agricole Bank, ProCredit Bank and Kredobank did not need additional capital according to the results of stress tests.
The estimated capital shortage of state-owned Oschadbank under the baseline scenario was UAH 13.49 billion, under the adverse macroeconomic scenario – UAH 28.25 billion, and by September 1, thanks to the measures taken, the bank had reduced it to UAH 6.19 billion and to UAH 21.14 billion, respectively.
The need in capital of state-owned Ukreximbank under the baseline amounted to UAH 9.776 billion, under the adverse macroeconomic scenario – UAH 17.53 billion; by September 1, the bank had decreased the figures to UAH 3.671 billion and to UAH 12.188 billion, respectively.
The estimated capital shortage of the subsidiary of the Russian Sberbank under the baseline scenario was UAH 1.44 billion, under the adverse scenario – UAH 4.759 billion. By September 1, as a result of the measures taken, the financial institution had no need for additional capital.
Parliamentary immunity has stopped being in effect from January 1, 2020.
As reported, On September 3, the Verkhovna Rada voted to adopt on its merits bill No. 7203 amending Article 80 of the Constitution of Ukraine which fully abolishes parliamentary immunity from 2020.
The law removes from Article 80 of the Constitution the provision stating that parliamentarians cannot be prosecuted, detained or arrested without the consent of the Verkhovna Rada and that they are guaranteed parliamentary immunity.
Only one provision remained in the article. This states that Ukrainian parliamentarians do not bear legal liability for the voting outcomes or statements made in the parliament or its bodies, with the exception of liability for slander or defamation.
At the end of 2019, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed bill No. 2237 into law, bringing the Ukrainian legislation regarding the immunity of deputies into line with the Constitution of Ukraine.
According to the adopted amendments, the application for permission to detain, select the measure of restraint (detention in custody, house arrest), and other investigative search actions must be agreed with the prosecutor general.
Investigators of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the central office of the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) are entitled to conduct pretrial investigation of criminal proceedings opened against MPs. It is forbidden to entrust the execution of a pretrial investigation of a criminal offense committed by an MP of Ukraine to other bodies of pretrial investigation, except for the NABU and the central office of the SBI in accordance with their investigative jurisdiction.
Kriukov Car Building Works (KCBW, Kremenchuk, Poltava region) tentatively produced marketable products worth over UAH 8 billion in 2019, which is 43.7% more than a year ago, Chairman of the enterprise’s supervisory board Volodymyr Prykhodko has said.
“According to current data, we have manufactured marketable products worth more than UAH 8 billion. The growth rate compared with 2018 is 143.7%, the sales rate is more than 157%,” he said in an interview with the corporate newspaper posted on the company’s website.
According to Prykhodko, 5,280 freight cars were assembled over the past year and this is 43.2% more than a year earlier (3,686 units).
“The plant worked all year with full load, twice we raised wages… The average salary reached UAH 16,500. Not all industrial enterprises of Kremenchuk managed to stay at that level,” the head of the supervisory board said.
Some UAH 715.7 million of taxes were paid to the budget and funds, including UAH 162.4 million to the local budget.
Prykhodko said that the goal of the enterprise for 2020 is to maintain the position of 2019 and increase the share of exports (he did not give a share for 2018).
He also said that in 2020 the KCBW intends to double (up to 6) the number of developments in the field of new technology, and plans to create an independent testing center on the basis of the existing one.
He also announced plans to double investment in enterprise development, without specifying the figure.
Ukraine’s gross foreign debt as of October 1, 2019 reached $119.95 billion, which is $4.44 billion or 3.8% more than in a quarter earlier, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has reported. According to the central bank, as for GDP the debt fell from 83.5% to 82.3% of GDP.
The NBU recalled that at the beginning of this year, gross external debt amounted to $114.71 billion, or 87.8% of GDP.
“The growth of external debt [in the third quarter] was mainly due to an increase in the external liabilities of the private sector of the economy, which grew by $4.4 billion, to $69.7 billion, or 47.8% of GDP,” the regulator said.
The NBU said that the volume of public sector debt to nonresidents in July-September remained virtually unchanged and remained at the level of $50.2 billion (34.4% of GDP). In particular, the external liabilities of the general government sector increased by $0.4 billion, to $43.0 billion (29.5% of GDP). The main reason was the active purchase of government bonds by nonresidents, the obligations on which increased by $1.8 billion.
At the same time, $0.7 billion on 2015 eurobonds were repaid, and another $0.4 billion was the net repayment on direct government loans, including $0.33 billion under the Stand-By Arrangement and Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Due to exchange rate changes, the volume of external obligations on government loans decreased $0.3 billion, while on debt securities denominated in hryvnia, it grew by $0.1 billion, the NBU said.
According to the data, the external debt of the central bank decreased by $375 million as a result of planned depreciation of payments on Stand-By loans and as of September 30, 2019 the debt amounted to $7.2 billion.
The volume of external debt of banks decreased in the third quarter by $0.1 billion to $4.9 billion, while the volume of external debt of other sectors of the economy increased by $4.1 billion, to $54.7 billion. This was due to the placement of $1.8 billion eurobonds, an increase in obligations on non-guaranteed loans and borrowings by $0.5 billion and an increase in obligations on trade loans by $1.9 billion.
Intercompany debt of enterprises in direct investment relations increased by $ 0.4 billion to $ 10.2 billion.
Overdue debt on non-guaranteed loans in the real economic sector (including from direct investors) decreased $0.5 billion during the quarter and amounted to $21.5 billion (14.8% of GDP) at the end of the third quarter of 2019.
The National Bank said that as of the end of September, the U.S. dollar remained the main currency of external borrowing of Ukraine with the share of 68%, however its share decreased 1.6 percentage points.
The share of liabilities in SDRs to the IMF also decreased, from 10.3% to 9.3%, while the share of borrowings in euros increased from 14.9% to 16%, and in hryvnia – from 2.7% to 4.2% The volume of liabilities in Russian rubles during the quarter remained virtually unchanged and amounted to 1.7% of the volume of external liabilities.
The volume of short-term external debt with a residual maturity increased by $2.8 billion and amounted to $48.9 billion as of September 30, 2019, the regulator said. The NBU said that the liabilities of the public sector (government and central bank), which should be repaid over the next 12 months, increased by $1.1 billion, to $5.9 billion mainly due to future payments on debt securities, then short-term liabilities of banking sectors fell $0.1 billion, to $1.2 billion
The total volume of real economic sector liabilities to be repaid over the next 12 months (together with intercompany debt) increased $1.6 billion, to $40.3 billion as a result of an increase in debt on short-term trade loans by $2.1 billion, to $16.6 billion.
