KYIV. Sept 30 (Interfax-Ukraine) –Online payments with bank debit cards in the second quarter of 2015 totaled UAH 45 billion, which was 1.6% up on the first quarter, the National Bank of Ukraine’s (NBU) press service has reported.
The NBU said that more than 111 million transactions worth almost UAH 43 billion occurred in Ukraine, while foreign online stores received UAH 2.5 billion in the equivalent, fewer than 2 million transactions.
In the first quarter of 2015 there were more than 91 million online transactions worth UAH 41.7 billion in Ukraine and 1.9 million online transactions worth UAH 2.6 billion abroad.
According to the NBU, the volume of online transactions in 2014 accounted for 44.2% of total non-cash debit card transactions.
In 2014, there were 249.8 million online transactions in Ukraine using debit cards worth UAH 105.4 billion, of which foreign online stores handled 6.6 million transactions worth UAH 7.3 billion in the equivalent.
From the beginning of 2015 to the end of August, the amount of cash in the economy decreased by 2.3%, to UAH 276.3 billion.
The NBU supports the further development of non-cash transactions and a reduction in the share of cash in the economy to 12% in 2020, which at the end of 2014 stood at 18%.
KYIV. Sept 30 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Public joint-stock company State Food-Grain Corporation, since the beginning of the 2015/16 agricultural year (July 2015-June 2016), has increased grain processing and produced 35,000 tonnes of flour, which is 15,000 tonnes or 43% up year-over-year, the press service of the corporation reported, referring to Head of the Processing Department of the corporation Viacheslav Tsehelnyk.
Tsehelnyk said that the corporation is actively cooperating with famous bread producers, including Kyivkhlib, Formula Smaku, Odesa Karavai, and others.
He said that loading of processing enterprises of the corporation cut the production cost of finished products and increased wages for employees.
In the previous years the corporation worked with Ukrainian companies via intermediaries.
In August 2010, the government 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 around 2.5 million tonnes of grain cargo per year.
KYIV. Sept 29 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The launch of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) on January 1, 2016 under the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement will open up new opportunities for expanding trade and economic cooperation between Ukraine and Austria, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said at a meeting with Austrian President Heinz Fischer.
“In this context, it was agreed to send the Austrian business mission to Ukraine headed by the [Austrian] Minister of Foreign Affairs,” the press service of the head of state has reported.
The meeting was held during the UN General Assembly in New York.
Fischer praised the decision of Ukraine to remove Austria from the list of countries subject to transfer pricing controls.
Both leaders also discussed the implementation of the Minsk agreements.
“It was emphasized that the democratic world must keep pressure on Moscow to ensure a complete ceasefire and create the conditions for the speedy reintegration of the occupied territories under the full sovereignty of Ukraine,” the press service said.
Fischer reassured Poroshenko of his willingness to continue to provide humanitarian assistance to Ukrainian citizens in the Anti-Terrorist Operation zone.
KYIV. Sept 29 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Vegetable production in 2015 will tentatively reach 8.7 million tonnes, Agricultural Policy and Food Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Pavlenko wrote on his Twitter page on Monday.
“Tentatively, 8.7 million tonnes of vegetables will be received with consumption of 6.7 million tonnes (160.2 kilograms per person),” he said.
Pavlenko added that the most of the vegetables will be used by households – around 7.4 million tonnes.
As reported, referring to the State Statistics Service, vegetables were sown on 1.814 million hectares in 2015, which is 4.5% down on 2014.
Potato harvest in 2014 totaled 23.7 million tonnes, which was 8.4% up on 2013. A total of 9.64 million tonnes of vegetable was harvested, 2.6% up year-over-year.
KYIV. Sept 29 (Interfax-Ukraine) – State-run Ukreximbank (Kyiv) has entered the Global Energy Efficiency Financing Alliance which unites 70 financial organizations from 20 countries.
The bank said in a press release that the decision to create the alliance was made at the forum “Building a Global Energy Efficiency Financing Alliance” held on September 16 and September 17 in Istanbul (Turkey) under the aegis of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in partnership with the United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative (UNEPFI).
The alliance passed a joint declaration to enhance financing of investment in increasing energy efficiency and the development of sustainable energy.
At the forum, Ukreximbank reached several agreements on further technical and consultation cooperation with the alliance members and on the mobilization of resources of international financial institutions and foreign banks to enhance financial support of medium and long-term Ukrainian investment projects in the sustainable energy sector.
Board member Oleksandr Schur said that the bank plans to support hydrocarbon-free economic development jointly with alliance members.
Ukreximbank was founded in 1992. Its sole owner is the state.
The bank ranked third among 127 banks operating in the country on July 1, 2015 by total assets (UAH 144.551 billion), according to the National Bank of Ukraine.
KYIV. Sept 29 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has said that the Ukrainian parliament should quickly pass a draft law on amendments to some Ukrainian laws on the creation and retaining the credit register of the NBU (No. 3111), the NBU said in a press release.
“The necessity of keeping the credit register of the NBU is linked to two requirements of today. First, in the conditions of the transformation of the Ukrainian banking sector there is a necessity of improving instruments of bank supervision to reduce credit risks, provide for security of bank transactions, protect the interests of depositors and other creditors of banks and increase stability of the banking system. Secondly, the creation of the credit register is Ukraine’s liability under the memorandum on the economic and financial policy signed as a part of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) with the IMF,” the press service of the central bank said, citing First Deputy NBU Governor Oleksandr Pysaruk.
According to the report, the creation of the credit register is linked to the tasks of monitoring the concentration of the credit risk, including increasing the monitoring of large business groups.
Pysaruk said that credit registers are widely spread in developed countries with effective market economies and banking systems, where they are the indicative instrument during the preliminary assessment of bank risks. Most countries have public credit registers, and private credit history bureaus also function.
