The aggregate state (direct) and state-guaranteed debt of Ukraine in October 2018 decreased by 0.46%, or by $0.34 billion, to $74.32 billion, according to the website of the Ministry of Finance. In the national currency the state debt fell by 0.93% or UAH 19.69 billion, to UAH 2.093 trillion.
Since the beginning of the year, the total state (direct) and state-guaranteed debt in U.S. dollar terms has decreased by 2.61%, or by $1.99 billion, in hryvnias – by 2.27%, or by UAH 48.6 billion.
The Finance Ministry said that the public debt in October decreased by 0.88%, to UAH 1.811 trillion (in U.S. dollars it decreased by 0.41% to $64.32 billion), while the external debt decreased by 1.02%, to UAH 1.06 trillion (in U.S. dollars decreased by 0.55%, to $37.65 billion).
Last month state-guaranteed debt fell by 1.28%, to UAH 281.65 billion (in U.S. dollars it decreased by 0.81% to $10 billion), including external debt by 1.35% to UAH 269.34 billion (in U.S. dollars decreased by 0.89%, to $9.56 billion).
The ministry also reported that the principal amount of public debt is denominated in U.S. dollars, 44.06%, another 30.18% in hryvnia, 16.21% in special drawing rights (SDR), and 8.39% in euros. In addition, less than 1% of government debt is denominated in Canadian dollars and yen.
The official hryvnia exchange rate, according to which the Ministry of Finance calculates the debt, in October improved to UAH 28.16/$1 from UAH 28.30/$, or by 0.47%, whereas by the end of 2017 it was UAH 28.07/$1.
Energy-saving innovations from Rauta, applied in the construction of Novus shopping mall, have been recognized by market experts in the nomination “Best technical solution”.
The awarding of the «Construction Atlantes» best projects was held on November 23 during the II National Forum on the construction projects management RED PM DAY 2018.
Rauta received an award for the Novus project in the nomination “Best technical solution”, in which the award jury and the forum participants evaluated technologies that make it possible to simplify the construction and maintenance of buildings. The Novus shopping center in Kiev became the first real estate in Ukraine to build with the new generation of Ruukki sandwich panels – Energy series.
“Only by using such sandwich panels commercial buildings with nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB) are being built in the EU countries,” said Andriy Ozeychuk, Rauta Director. “Advanced energy efficiency panels make it possible to save an additional 20% on heating and air conditioning of the real estate and to achieve the A-level of building energy efficiency”.
It should be noted that using Ruukki sandwich panels of the ENERGY series allows the commercial property to obtain higher rates for LEED, BREEAM and FM certification systems.
Capital investments in Ukraine in January-September 2018 increased by 19.9%, while in January-September 2017 by 20.7%, the State Statistics Service has reported. Capital investments in Ukraine in 2017 increased by 22.1%, in the first nine months of the year by 20.7% and in the first half of the previous year by 22.5%. According to the service, in January-September 2018 some UAH 337 billion of capital investments was used (excluding the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea, Sevastopol and Donbas).
In terms of regions, the largest increase in capital investments in January-September 2018 compared to the same period in 2017 was recorded in Donetsk (84.9%), Vinnytsia (42.4%), Dnipropetrovsk (34.6%), Chernihiv (33.1%), Rivne (28.1%), Zakarpattia (24.7%), Cherkasy (17%), Zhytomyr (12.6%), Volyn (12.4%), Chernivtsi (by 11.1%), Kharkiv (by 9.5%), Ternopil (by 8.4%), Poltava (8.3%), Odesa (8.2%), Lviv (7.2%), Kyiv (5.3%) and Sumy (3.3%) regions and Kyiv City (by 35.2%).
According to statistics, capital investment over the period fell in Mykolaiv (17.8%), Zaporizhia (16.7%), Khmelnytsky (9.5%), Kirovohrad (9%), Kherson (7.1%), Ivano-Frankivsk (3.9%), and Luhansk (3.1%) regions.
In terms of sectors, the growth of capital investments in January-September 2018 was recorded in postal and courier activities (a 2.7-fold rise), arts, sports and entertainment (a 2.1-fold rise), telecom (59.9%), aviation (55.3%), IT and telecom (53.8%), warehouses and auxiliary operations in the transport sphere (53.7%), retail trade (50.7%), programming and provision of other IT services (49.7%), forestry and logging (38.5%), wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (37.14%), land and pipeline transport, as well as wholesale and retail trade (36%), financial and insurance activities (28.9%), publishing (28%), in the field of health care and social assistance (27.1%), industry (25.2%), public administration and defense, compulsory social insurance (24.6%), education (23.1%), agriculture, forestry and fisheries (7.7%).
The decline was seen in administrative and auxiliary servicing (18.9%), water transport (15%) and construction (10.8%).
Own funds of enterprises and organizations remain the main source of financing of capital investments, which account for 73.2% of the total volume of all investments.
A significant share of capital investments was made in machinery, equipment and vehicles – 47.2%, buildings and structures – 42.8% of all investments.
Representatives of the Ukrainian government and Germany have signed an intergovernmental agreement on the provision of EU 84.8 million for technical and financial assistance projects to Ukraine, Ukrainian Ambassador in Germany Andriy Melnyk has said. “We have signed the Ukrainian-German intergovernmental protocol on the provision of EUR 84.8 million to Ukraine for technical and financial assistance projects in Berlin,” he wrote in his twitter microblog.
Consumer confidence of Ukrainians in October 2018 decreased to the level of early 2018, and the downward trend touched all indexes, apart from devaluation expectations. According to the materials of the monthly study of GfK Ukraine, the consumer confidence index (CCI) equaled 56.9 in October 2018, which is 5.7 points lower than the indicator in September 2018 and 5.7 points higher than in October 2017.
GfK Ukraine said that index of expectations of the country’s economic development over the next year decreased by 9.7 points and equaled 52.9.
Index of expectations of the country’s economic development over the next five years also decreased and equaled 64.3, which is 7.2 points lower than the indicator in September.
In general, in October, index of economic expectations (ІЕE) decreased by 6.6 points to the level of 57.5.
Index of propensity to consume decreased by 6.2 points and reached the indicator of 65.3, GfK Ukraine said.
Index of the current situation (ICS) decreased by 4.5 points and equaled 56.
Index of expected changes in personal financial standing decreased by 2.8 points comparing to the previous month and equaled 55.1.
In October, the expectations of Ukrainians regarding the possibility of unemployment have slightly worsened: the indicator of index of expectations of changes in unemployment equaled 136.2 that is 2.3 higher than the indicator in the previous month.
Meanwhile, index of inflationary expectations has remained mostly unchanged 190.3, which is 0.1 points lower than in the previous month.
“At the same time, the consumers corrected the devaluation expectations: the index of devaluation expectations decreased after its sharp growth in August-September,” the authors of the study said, adding that index of devaluation expectations decreased by 8.1 points and reached the level of 162.2.
GfK Ukraine has been surveying households to determine consumer confidence in Ukraine since June 2000. Some 1,000 respondents are polled.
JSC EVR (Estonian railways) is interested in expanding the route of the Kyiv-Minsk-Vilnius-Riga train to Tallinn, and the negotiations on the issue are scheduled for December, Ukrzaliznytsia reported on Monday. “Today the train is running at about zero cost effectiveness. However, given the “low season” and only the recent launch, we can consider the launch of this train successful,” Ukrzaliznytsia said.
According to the company, after eight trips the train carried 2,100 passengers, of which 1,000 – to/from Lithuania and 950 – to/from Latvia.
As reported, the Kyiv-Minsk-Vilnius-Riga train with shuttling once a week was launched on September 28 of this year from Kyiv.
