KYIV. Aug 21 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has said that the main stage of the implementation of the Community-led Urban Strategies in Historic Towns (COMUS) jointly with the European Union has started in the pilot towns of Lutsk (Volyn region) and Zhovkva (Lviv region).
“The joint project with the EU on urban strategies COMUS is entering the main stage of the implementation. The pilot towns-participants are Lutsk and Zhovkva,” the cabinet wrote on its Twitter page on Friday.
The COMUS project is a joint project of the Council of European the European Commission included in the EU action plan for Ukraine. The project is aimed at prompting national and local authorities to strategically renew and develop small and medium historic towns and their suburbs via revitalization of cultural inheritance to modern needs, rehabilitation of traditional housing an expansion of the range of opportunities for its use.
The COMUS project is the next stage of the Pilot Project on Rehabilitating the Cultural Heritage in Historic Towns (PP2) which was realized in 2008-2011 under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine. Along with Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan took part in the project.
KYIV. Aug 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry of Ukraine has said that the harvesting of early grain crops from 10.1 million hectares has been finished and 36.7 million tonnes of grain has been threshed with an average yield of 36.2 centners per hectare.
“This year farmers threshed more than last year – 2 million tonnes more [of early grain crops]. This year 36.7 million tonnes of grain was threshed from 10.1 million hectares with a yield of 36.2 centners per hectare,” Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko said at a briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.
He said that farmers from Odesa (3 million tonnes), Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv (2.8 million tonnes each) and Zaporizhia (2.6 million tonnes) regions saw the best results.
Pavlenko said that 26.8 million tonnes of wheat was harvested from 6.8 million hectares with a yield of 39.4 centners per hectare, 8.5 million tonnes of barley was harvested from 2.8 million hectares with a yield of 30.5 centners per hectare, 365,000 tonnes of rye was harvested from 144,000 hectares and 248,000 tonnes of oats was harvested from 203,000 hectares.
A total of 392,000 tonnes of peas were harvested from 169,000 hectares with a yield of 23.2 centners per hectare, 1.7 million tonnes of rapeseeds was harvested from 674,000 hectares with yield of 25.7 centners per hectare.
Harvesting of buckwheat, millet and soybeans is underway, the ministry said.
KYIV. Aug 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Metinvest, the largest Ukrainian mining and metal holding, supplied over 4,000 tonnes of P50 rails made by Azovstal steel works (Mariupol, Donetsk region) to the Cuban market for the construction of a new railway track in January-June 2015, the company said in a press release.
The company said that the Cuban customer conducted a technical audit that confirmed the quality of Metinvest Group’s products. This type of rails is widely used for general and special-purpose railway track.
Azovstal shipped the rails to the Cuban Ministry of Transportation to be used in the construction of a railway track to the port of Mariel. The development of infrastructure for the port, which is 50 kilometers from Havana, was driven by its establishment as Cuba’s first free economic zone in 2014.
More than 200 kilometers of track have been constructed from Metinvest rails in the last three years.
Broad-gauge P50 rails and P65 rails are Metinvest’s most in demand products. Overall, the company manufactures more than 10 typical sizes of standard-gauge and narrow-gauge rails.
“Taking into consideration the high sales efficiency of rolled steel for railway tracks, Metinvest Group is developing its product range and focusing on demand in both domestic and external markets. For example, Azovstal has begun to produce rails with tempered side edges,” the company said.
KYIV. Aug 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine is to initiate cooperation with Iran, including in production, due to the expected decision of the U.S. to lift sanctions from the country, Ukraine’s Economic Development and Trade Minister Aivaras Abromavicius has said.
“On September 14-16, I’m likely to go [to Iran] with the Agricultural Minister and a large group of entrepreneurs and industrialists to establish cooperation with the country. After the U.S. sanctions are lifted, huge opportunities [will] open up there. Last week we discussed the cooperation directions with the ambassador. Mainly it concerns companies on metro engineering and other types of engineering,” he said at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on Wednesday.
KYIV. Aug 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine intends in 2016 to open 14 trade representative offices in a new format in other countries in addition to the six that will be opened this year, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Aivaras Abromavicius has said.
“We will set up six trade representative offices in a new format this year and from the new year they will begin to work. Next year we will open 14 more [missions], i.e. 20 trade missions abroad in a new format will work by the end of 2016,” the minister said at a Cabinet meeting on August 20.
KYIV. Aug 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian railways in the period from January 1 to August 17, 2015 loaded grain to over 255,000 grain carriers and shipped around 17 million tonnes of grain cargo, the press service of the State Railway Administration of Ukraine (Ukrzaliznytsia) has reported.
Ukrzaliznytsia said that in August around 1,300 grain carriers was loaded every day.
Since early 2015, over 230,000 cars with grain (almost 15 million tonnes) were loaded, which is 27% up year-over-year, including 210,700 cars with grain for exports sent to ports (13.8 million tonnes, a rise of 32.6% year-over-year). Grain was almost loaded directly from cars to ships from 6,200 cars (410,900 tonnes, a rise of 52.6%).
Daily grain loading was 1,033 cars (25.2% up).
In 17 days of August railways accelerated grain car turnover by 0.12 days, to 9.72 days.
In August 2015, the grain carrier fleet totaled 13,228 cars, which is enough to ship 2-2.5 million tonnes of grain every month.
