One troy ounce=31.10 grams
Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine deputy and Opposition Party Co-chairman Borys Kolesnykov has said Ukraine should export more highly processed products, remove the energy and food blockade of Donbas and create a comfortable business climate for investors. “Ukraine simply needs to export more and import less, and within three years we must export highly processed products. We must act solely in our own economic interests,” he said on his Facebook page on Thursday. Kolesnykov said government should “promptly remove the energy and food blockade of Donbas and create a real investment climate in the country for both domestic investors and foreign investors.” “Ukraine simply has to become an Eastern European Singapore,” he said.
Occupancy of Kyiv’s hotels in the highest peak of the tourist season (May-August) grew by 1.6 percentage points (p.p.) in the upscale segment, to 47% and by 5 p.p. in the midscale segment, to 56%, the press service of Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) in Ukraine has reported. According to JLL, Average Daily Room Rate (ADR) in the upscale hotel segment in Kyiv in May-August 2018 grew to $175, which is 10% more than in May-August 2017, while Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) grew by $13, to $85.
“May was the month when hotels were occupied the most, when the UEFA Champions League final took place. This event… allowed hotels of the upscale segment to reach occupancy of 59% with the increase of ADR by almost 40%, to $230,” Head of the Hotels & Hospitality Department at JLL Tetiana Veller said.
According to the JLL report, in the midscale segment of the Kyiv’s hotels there was a decrease in ADR by an average of 10%, to $80. At the same time, due to the increase in the occupancy to 56%, RevPAR in this segment increased to $45.
According to the consulting company, Kyiv hotels in the eight months ending August 2018 showed an increase in occupancy by 1 p.p. in the upscale segment and by 2 p.p. in the midscale segment, the growth of ADR – by $15 in the upscale and $2 in the midscale.
The Biosphere Corporation (Dnipro), a large producer of home and personal care products, has entered the Polish market, signing an agreement on supplies of moist wipes Smile under the license of The Walt Disney Company and Universal with the Biedronka retail chain. “Biosphere Corporation entered the Polish market with a contract with the Biedronka chain. In one of the largest Polish networks, which includes more than 2,800 stores across the country, 15 names of the Smile brand will be presented under the license of The Walt Disney Company and Universal. Thus, the Smile brand was the first in Poland with an official license from the two largest Western studios. In the nearest future the corporation plans to enter other chains of this country,” the press service of the Biosphere Corporation said.
The corporation was also informed about the exclusive license from The Walt Disney Company and Universal, with which it has been cooperating since 2012, for using cartoon characters on the moist wipes Smile on the Polish market.
Biosphere Corporation, which has been operating in Ukraine for over 20 years, is the leader in the production and distribution of home and personal care products in Ukraine and the CIS. Its products are represented on some 20 markets in Europe and Asia. In the product portfolio the company has more than 2,000 items.
One third of state-managed forestry enterprises (27%) are left without connection to the wood electronic management system (WEM), in particular, this concerns forest management enterprises subordinated to the Education Ministry, Defense Ministry, as well as municipal forests and forests of regional automobile agencies, Director General of the state-owned enterprise (SOE) Ukrainian Forestry Innovation and Analytical Centre Viktor Melnychenko has said.
“In 2010, we, together with our partners, Latschbacher, started developing a wood electronic management system that allows us to trace the process of logging and selling wood, and it has been introduced in all enterprises of the State Forestry Agency of Ukraine since 2012. In general, the system covers 73% of state-owned forestry enterprises,” he said at a press conference at the Kyiv-based Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
At the same time, Melnychenko said that the government resolution on the creation of a pilot project for the implementation of the electronic logging system for the second year remains without consideration, whereas its adoption could favor the connection of all state-owned forestry enterprises to the system.
According to Melnychenko, the system introduced in 2012 has been supplemented with new modules and applications that allow the public and law enforcement agencies to receive information on wood accounting.
“After logging we mark the wood with a special plastic tag with a barcode, then move it and sell it. A year ago we introduced the “Police” application created to track and verify the movement of the wood along public roads. Today we present the “Certificate” application,” the representative of the developer of the WEM system – the Austrian company Latschbacher GmbH, Volodymyr Molochko, said at the press conference.
According to him, when issuing a certificate of origin for wood, the system automatically checks the availability of documents for legally acquired wood. The certificate itself, allowing tracing the entire supply chain, is transferred by the WEM system to the customs system of Ukraine in electronic and encrypted form.
