KYIV. March 2 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is extending a $3 million loan to Ecosoft (Irpin, Kyiv region), the country’s leading producer of water purification equipment, in order to provide modern water treatment solutions for households and businesses in Ukraine, reads a bank press release.
“The investment will strengthen inclusion by providing customers with access to clean water at affordable rates. Inclusion is one of the six transition qualities defining the EBRD’s work. The bank believes that a well-functioning market economy should be competitive, inclusive, well-governed, green, resilient and integrated,” the report reads.
“A five-year loan will help the company to increase its production and storage capacity by purchasing additional injection moulding equipment. Ecosoft will also commission a new warehouse, improve its range of pitcher-type water filters and launch the production of reverse osmosis filtering membranes thus offering domestic customers an affordable high-tech alternative to imported water filters,” according to the document.
“The investment is supported by the European Union under the EU4Business Initiative which is designed to support small and medium-sized enterprises in the countries that will benefit from a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area with the EU (DCFTA),” the bank stated.
“Ecosoft has been known to us since 2012 through our advisory program for small businesses. We are pleased to witness the progress and the expansion of this high-tech company, which is now exporting its filters to over 40 countries around the world. Customers will be able enjoy better-quality drinking water while spending less on its treatment,” EBRD Director for Ukraine Sevki Acuner said.
Ecosoft has benefited from support through the EBRD Small Business Impact Fund, which, with financial support from the United States, has provided $2 million to moderate the risks of EBRD investment in Ukraine.
The EBRD is the largest international financial investor in Ukraine. To date, the bank has made a cumulative commitment of almost EUR12.2 billion through 377 projects since the start of its operations in the country in 1993.
KYIV. March 2 (Interfax-Ukraine) – A trend of expanding areas with planted winter crops was seen in the past two or three years in Ukraine, Director General of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club (UCAB) Taras Vysotsky has said.
“In the mid-2000s there was a trend of reducing the areas with winter crops in favor of spring crops, but five years ago this trend has been changed. Over the past two years winter crops started to return the lost ground,” UCAB said, citing Vysotsky.
He said that it is primarily due to the changes in climatic conditions, possibility of performing production operations in spring as well as stable profitability of winter crops.
“In the spring there are increasingly unfavorable conditions for sowing spring crops which does not allow completing sowing on time, and as you know, 10-15% of the yield depends on the timing of sowing. If you count the factors of the harvest shortfall, the profits of winter crops are more stable. Currently, we are witnessing the return of 10-15% of the areas with winter crops that were used to be sown with spring crops,” he said.
He also said that the figures of the two previous yields indicate that more and more companies are starting to consider wheat not as a part of the crop rotation and a possibility of paying rent fees to the landowners, but as a marginal crop. Farm businesses set goals to get as a minimum 6 tonnes per ha instead of 4 tonnes per ha.
KYIV. March 2 (Interfax-Ukraine) – DEZEGA Holding Ukraine, the designer and producer of mine rescue equipment, has signed a contract with Buenaventura mining company (Peru, South America) to supply self-contained self-rescuers for workers of mines, the holding’s press service reported on Wednesday.
“This is the fifth continent where the international holding with Ukrainian roots brings new technologies. These are new frontiers for the national industry of Ukraine and the start of the use of self-rescuers for Peru,” the company said.
The press service said that the contract to supply self-rescuers for Buenaventura is the largest in the history of Peru. Its cost is not disclosed.
The press service told Interfax-Ukraine that a first batch of self-rescuers has been shipped to the customer.
According to the press release, South American countries use less effective filter respiratory protective equipment. Using DEZEGA self-contained self-rescuers, Peru is making significant progress in improving worker health and safety in mines. In contrast to the filtering respiratory protection equipment, the self-contained self-rescues completely isolate users from dangerous irrespirable environments.
“DEZEGA together with its representative in South America were able to prove the advantages of self-contained self-rescuers and won the tender. T holding had to compete in the tender with manufacturers from around the world: America, Germany, Poland and China, which in addition to the self-contained, actively promoted the filter respiratory protective equipment. Also DEZEGA products also use technically superior components while maintaining the best quality-to-price ratio,” the company said.
“This is a serious step for entering the South American market and the beginning of cooperation with leading mining companies in the region,” DEZEGA Board Chairman Anton Sakovych said.
According to DEZEGA Holding Ukraine, its global self-rescuers are used in over 40 countries. The company, headquartered in Kyiv, has official representative offices in five regions.
Buenaventura is engaged in mining and processing, and the development and exploration of gold, silver, coal, lead, zinc and other minerals.
KYIV. March 1 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Some 21,000 tourists from Ukraine visited India in 2016, Ambassador of India to Ukraine Manoj Kumar Bharti has said.
“According to our information, in 2016, around 21,000 tourists from Ukraine visited India, including 18,000 who visited India under new “visa on arrival” rules. This means that the embassy issued only around 3,000 visas for special cases,” the ambassador said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.
The diplomat said that everyone who wants to visit his country for the period of no more than 30 days are not obliged to come to the embassy and receive visas. It is enough to fill in the form on the website.
“Visa will be issued on the arrival for the period of up to 29 days. I am glad to say that this service will be improved in two months,” Bharti said.
He said that the key tourists’ destinations last year were Goa and Kerala beaches for beach holidays and Varanasi, Rishikesh and Hyderabad for tourists interested in Indian culture, history and philosophy.
He said that Indian tourists do not visit Ukraine due to the complicated visa registration procedure.
“At present, according to my information, there is no tourist from India. Students from India or Indian citizens and members of their families and friends come here. The main problem is the visa. It is hard to receive it. India has introduced the visa on arrival that has been in effect for six months. We would like Ukraine make counter moves,” he said.
Bharti said that Indian tourists could bring around $37 million to the Ukrainian economy.
KYIV. March 1 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU) aims at providing for the practical implementation of the project on the creation of the Cyclone 4 medium class rocket launcher with a new foreign partner instead of Brazil which left the project in 2015 at its final stage. The agency is working on several options of partnership under the project, acting Head of SSAU Yuriy Radchenko has said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
“Recently gossips appeared that the Cyclone 4 is the unpromising rocket. According to our opinion, it has the serious prospect and it is of demand on the international market: today we are working on at least three options of cooperation with foreign partners under the Cyclone 4 project,” Radchenko said.
“I think soon, in March-April, we will have an interim result of the discussion of the prospects of signing contracts with foreign partners under the program,” he said.
He did not specify the cooperation plans, adding that North America and the Middle East countries show their interest to the potential of the Cyclone 4 rocket.
“There are proposals to create the launcher in one of Arab countries. It is a serious proposal. We held negotiations during the international space forum in Abu-Dhabi on February 1 and February 2. There are plans to sign a cooperation agreement in April,” Radchenko said.
Commenting on the possibility of compensation of losses by Brazil over the unilateral termination of 10 year cooperation under the Cyclone 4 project to Ukraine raised in the political circles and Brazilian media, Radchenko said that at present the parties are holding talks on the quick return of Ukrainian equipment supplied under the project. The equipment is on the balance of the Ukrainian-Brazil JV that was realizing the project.
“I think it is early to discuss the compensation of losses until the assets on the balance of the JV are divided legally,” he said.
KYIV. March 1 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Port elevators of public joint-stock company State Food-Grain Corporation since early 2016/17 agricultural year have handled 1.5 million tonnes of grain, the company’s press service has reported.
The situation with delivery of grain of the corporation from elevators to ports is a problem.
“In February we received only a half of 3,000 wagons declared. On average the supply of grain wagons is 45-50%. This affects handling and exports volumes,” Director of the logistics department Dmytro Shmokarev said.
As reported, the corporation is working on a project to create own fleet of wagons to solve the problem of a lack of grain wagons. The corporation intends to buy up to 500 wagons in 2017.
The government in August 2010 decided to create the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine. The corporation has a chain of branches, comprised of grain storage facilities, flourmills, fodder factories and a cereals factory. The 53 subdivisions of the corporation can store a total of 3.75 million tonnes of grain, which includes the grain handling capacities of Odesa and Mykolaiv ports of some 2.5 million tonnes of grain cargo per year.
