Public joint-stock company Ukrtelecom has designed a project to connect remote settlements to the broadband Internet access service, which could cover 8,000 villages where 6 million residents are living, during two years, Director for Mass Market Segment at Ukrtelecom Denys Zakharenko said at the presentation of the project in Kyiv on Monday. The total cost of the project is UAH 6 billion, including UAH 3.2 billion (53.3%) of government investment.
He said that all villages with schools (6,900) and villages located close to them with over 100 households will be included in the project.
Ukrtelecom said that mass connection would ensure the coverage of 40% of the total number of rural residents in Ukraine with the broadband Internet access service, which would cut the gap between cities and small towns and villages by 75%, as the share of rural areas in Ukraine where the service is not provided would decline from 56% to 16%, from 8.3 million to 2.3 million people.
According to the calculations of the operator, some 58,000 km of networks should be built to cover 8,000 villages.
The operator said that 14,000 villages are not covered by the project. A total of 2.3 million residents live there. This could be a ground for the second wave of connections.
Thanks to the implementation of the project, broadband Internet access saturation in Ukraine would grow by 4.4%, and GDP would grow by 0.6%, which in the prices of 2018 is around UAH 20 billion. Growth of the national budget’s revenue could be UAH 5.4 billion.
Zakharenko said that the buyback period for government investment could be two years thanks to the increase in payment of taxes.
Ukrtelecom Director Yuriy Kurmaz said that the project will be presented to the government and parliament.
The only shareholder in public joint-stock company Sberbank (Kyiv) – Sberbank (Russia) – has decided to increase the charter capital of the Ukrainian subsidiary bank by UAH 8.3 billion or 66.6%, to UAH 20.766 billion via the placement of additionally issued shares, the bank has reported in the information disclosure system of the National Commission for Securities and the Stock Market. According to the report, the decision was made on May 11.
The bank will privately place the shares with a face value of UAH 1. Sberbank (Kyiv) was founded in 2001. The bank ranked 9th among 84 operating banks as of January 1, 2018,in terms of total assets worth UAH 42.363 billion, according to the National Bank of Ukraine.
The mobile communications operator Kyivstar saw a 10.1% rise in total revenue in January-March 2018 year-over-year, to UAH 4.263 billion, according to a financial report of the company’s shareholder – Veon international group (before the rebranding it was VimpelCom Ltd.) posted on its official website. According to the report, during this period, Kyivstar increased earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by 16.4% compared to the same period in 2016, to UAH 2.412 billion. The EBITDA margin increased 3 percentage points (p.p.), to 56.6%.
Revenue from mobile operator services for the first three months of 2018 amounted to UAH 3.968 billion, an 11% increase over the same period in 2017, which is explained by the growth in both the number of mobile Internet users (by 1.6 million) and their mobile data use (average consumption of mobile data traffic per month increased by 121%, to 1.5 GB per subscriber).
At the same time, revenue from mobile Internet for the year increased by almost 59%. Its share was 33% of total revenue from mobile communications. The number of mobile subscribers of Kyivstar in January-March 2018 increased 1.9% to 26.5 million. The minutes of use (MoU) grew by 2.1%, to 586 minutes. The average revenue per user (ARPU) rose by 8.5%, to UAH 49 per month.
Revenue of the mobile operator from fixed-line communications remained unchanged in the first quarter of 2018, being UAH 295 million. The number of fixed-line Internet users slightly grew – by 2.7%, to some 800,000 users, and ARPU from fixed-line Internet grew by 4.3%, to UAH 72.
Capital investment over the period fell by 6.8% (not taking into account the cost of 4G licenses), reaching UAH 687 million.
According to the report, the operator continued to deploy its 3G network in the first quarter, expanding its coverage of the area with the 3G network from 64% in the first quarter of 2017 to 74% in the first quarter of 2018. In April 2018, the company began to provide communication services in the 4G (LTE) standard. In the first quarter of 2018, Kyivstar transferred more than UAH 2.9 billion taxes and duties to the national budget of Ukraine.
National energy company Ukrenergo plans to finish reconstruction of the Berezan 220/3510 kV substation in Mykolaiv region to accept electricity from a solar power plant of Voskhod Solar LLC with the installed capacity of 53.4 MW, the press service of Ukrenergo has reported.
“The project provides for the installation of an additional power transformer to ensure the full power output of the solar power plant to the 220 kV network, and oil-filled equipment of the 220 kV switchgear will be replaced with up-to-date efficient and reliable SF6 equipment. Assembly and startup works have been finished on the reconstructed 35 kV and 10 kV switchgears, partially on 220 kV switchgear, as well as DC equipment for own needs,” the company said.
Ukrenergo said that the completion of the first stage of reconstruction of the Berezan substation and the connection of 35 kV overhead lines will increase the reliability of the power supply to the resort areas of Mykolaiv region (Koblevo, Tuzly).
According to the data published in the ProZorro e-procurement system, the reconstruction of the Berezan substation is being carried out by Elmiko LLC for UAH 129.976 million. The owner of Voskhod Solar LLC is the Chinese CNBM International Corporation. Earlier, the project of construction of this plant was managed by Activ Solar belonged to fugitive brothers Andriy and Serhiy Kliuyev.
BEREZAN SUBSTATION, ENERGY COMPANY, RECONSTRUCT, UKRENERGO, VOSKHOD SOLAR
The “one face to the customer” approach in customs would allow speeding up exports by Ukrainian pharmaceutical manufacturers, Commercial Director of PJSC Research and Industrial Center Borschahivka chemical and pharmaceutical plant Yevhen Sova has said. “The “one face to the customer” approach is intended to significantly facilitate the customs clearing and declaration of goods. We, for our part, are actively expanding and developing exports. The plant’s products are presented in 19 countries, and the share of exports is over 12%. We understand all benefits that the initiative could bring. In particular, this would allow supplying medicines more quickly and with smaller expenses,” he told Interfax-Ukraine.
At the same time, commenting on the completion of the transition period for the introduction of the updated order of information exchange at the Ukrainian customs using the “one face to the customer” approach, Sova said that “as for any innovation at the state level, it takes time to tune the work, identify and eliminate possible inconsistencies.” “This is a natural process,” he said.
At the same time Sova said that the state should ensure the competent implementation of the “one face to the customer” approach and also provide for clear rules and instructions that will allow fully implementing the changes, monitor the quality of their implementation and guarantee the expected result, namely, to simplify the mechanism of entering foreign markets for Ukrainian products.
Six Ukrainian automobile plants produced 675 vehicles in April 2018, which is 13% less than in March 2018, the Ukrautoprom association has said. According to preliminary data, production of vehicles compared with April 2017 grew by 8.7%. Eurocar, the Skoda car manufacturer, cut production in April by 10% compared with March 2018, to 615 cars. Production grew by almost 8% year-over-year. Eurocar was the only producer of passenger cars in Ukraine in April.
Bus production fell by 13% compared with March 2018, to 54, including three buses made by ZAZ, one each by Bogdan Corporation and Chernihiv Automobile Plant of Etalon Corporation. Chasiv Yar Plant made 14 buses, and Cherkasy Bus – 35.
Only six commercial vehicles were made – one at ZAZ and five at Cherkasy Bus, while in March 2018 a total of 62 vehicles were made and in February – 80.
AutoKrAZ did not provide information on its production figures.
The association said that in January-April 2018, vehicle production grew by 32.7% year-over-year, to 2,739. Passenger car output grew by 31%, to 2,383 (all made at Eurocar), bus production – by 16%, to 255, and commercial vehicle output (without figures of AutoKrAZ) fell by 34%, to 101.
