KHARKIV. June 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The owner and president of DCH Group Oleksandr Yaroslavsky, who holds a controlling stake in Kharkiv Tractor Plant, has no plans to attract external investment for resumption of the plant’s operation.
“[The situation at] the plant is hard, but taking into account our experience, one can restore it. There are specialists, production facilities and desire. I have money and I am not going to involve anyone,” he said at a press conference in Kharkiv on Tuesday.
Yaroslavsky said that the problem with blocking the enterprise’s account and arrest of its assets should be resolved to quickly launch tractor production. The arrest is linked to criminal cases against the head of Kharkiv Tractor Plant Andriy Koval appointed in March 2016.
He said that if the accounts are unblocked, the plant will be able to pay wage arrears to its employees. The debt has reached UAH 20 million.
The businessman said dozens of millions of U.S. dollars would be required for the successful operation of the enterprise.
Yaroslavsky said that at his meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on June 9 the latter supported the proposal to resume production for the defense sector at Kharkiv Tractor Plant.
“On Thursday I spoke with the president and we discussed this issue. We backed this idea… We will have to launch production. We need a state order and investment. It is estimated at UAH 350-400 million,” he said.
Yaroslavsky said that the enterprise can sell its products on the Ukrainian market, as well in Kazakhstan and Russia.
As of June 14, 2016, Yaroslavsky held 62.44% of shares in Kharkiv Tractor Plant and the rest of the shares belonged to Siegfried Wolf.
1 Excluding the temporarily occupied territories, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol and part of the anti-terrorist operation zone. 2 Data may be revised. Source: State Statistics Services
KYIV. June 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Sweden’s Minister for Enterprise and Innovation Mikael Damberg has said that Swedish companies are interested in investing in the IT sector in Ukraine.
“If you look at the IT sector in Ukraine – well-educated young people bring innovations to Ukraine. Many Swedish companies consider investing in Ukraine, in the IT sector in Ukraine,” the minister said during the Swedish-Ukrainian business forum in Kyiv on Monday.
He also spoke about the intensification of cooperation in this area between the two countries’ companies.
According to Damberg, Ukraine should use the advantages that it has, in particular its well-educated employees.
KYIV. June 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Mriya Agro Holding has approved a plan of investment for the second half of 2016 in the amount of $15.2 million, subject to replenishing its working capital, the company said in a statement.
“Specifically, the company intends to allocate $12.5 million for purchase of machinery and equipment including leasing operations and $2.7 million for support and official registration of the land bank,” the statement reads.
The total sum of investments planned for 2016 is $17.2 million.
According to the company’s plan and sufficient availability of working capital, the management expects the value of this year’s harvest to be $114.4 million based on the current forecast of market price. The operating cash flow for May-December 2016 is estimated at $15.9 million.
“However, due to the ongoing negotiations on restructuring of the company’s debt portfolio, the issue of future replenishment of working capital remains open. If the working capital is restricted to the currently available amount of the working capital facility, Mriya’s management forecasts that this will have a negative impact on revenues and operating margin up to $7 million for the season,” the statement reads.
Under this scenario, the investment period will be postponed until late 2016 and the investment projects will be scaled down to $10 million, which will have a negative impact on the results for the 2016-2017 season, the company said.
Mriya Agro Holding has already invested $2 million into the purchase of new equipment since the beginning of 2016. Specifically, the company has purchased John Deere 7930 tractors and Challenger8186 No-till sowing machines. Mriya has also made all mandatory investments in logistics and elevators and is ready for the harvest.
As was reported, Mriya Agro Holding is in talks on easing the debt burden from $1.3 billion to an acceptable level, which, according to creditors’ estimates, is about $300 million.
The remaining part of the debt will be converted into capital. The company hopes to complete the restructuring until the end of 2016.
As reported, Mriya in August 2014 reported on an overdue payment of about $9 million of interest income and about $120 million on its liabilities. The aggregate debt of the holding to all financial creditors, taking into account guarantees provided to entities related to the Huta family, at the time of defaulting was about $1.3 billion
In January 2015, creditors took operational control and elected new managers.
KYIV. June 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The State Road Fund could be launched from January 1, 2017 if relevant bills are submitted to the Verkhovna Rada before July 16, 2016.
An Interfax-Ukraine journalist reported that Chairman of the parliamentary transport committee Yaroslav Dubnevych gave the information at a meeting in the Infrastructure Ministry on Monday.
“It is especially important to collect all proposals for the bills in short terms and register them no later than July 16 – before the current session ends. We can receive the conclusions of profile ministries in the first days of September and put on the agenda of the parliament. This would enable the Road Fund to start functioning from January 1, 2017. The reform that transfers local roads to management of regional administrations jointly with financing foreseen in the fund would also begin functioning,” Dubnevych said.
Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said that the required documents have been drawn up.
“We have drafted several bills: the bill on the creation of the Road Fund, bills on decentralization of Ukravtodor. We have drawn up some cabinet resolutions and legislative initiatives on the introduction of the tolling system – a fee collected from trucks which weight exceeds 12 tonnes. A resolution introducing FIDIC control has been crafted and two bills regarding the weight control have been submitted to parliament,” the minister said.
He said that there is an initiative to make fines for over-weight trucks one of the sources of replenishing the Road Fund and the budget of Ukrtransbezpeka.
The ministry has submitted a proposal to impose large fines that meet the European level to parliament.
“We want to fine not only the hauler, but also the company that orders the services and freighters. The fine is UAH 17,000, but the bill has not yet been voted,” the minister said.
KYIV. June 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has revised its forecast for sunflower oil production in 2016/17 agricultural year (September-August) upwards by 7.6%, to 5.372 million tonnes compared to its May forecast.
The USDA said on its website that the forecast of the yield of sunflower seeds in Ukraine was revised upwards by 1 million tonnes, to 13 million tonnes.
The forecast for sunflower oil exports was revised upwards by 6.7%, to 4.8 million tonnes, oil cake – by 9.8%, to 4.5 million tonnes. Oil cake production could reach 5.31 million tonnes.
Ukraine is the world’s leader in production and exports of sunflower oil.
