MINSK. Dec 18 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Belavia airline predicts that the passenger flow via Minsk to Ukraine will continue growing along with the opening of the flight from Minsk to Kharkiv on Thursday, Deputy Marketing and Foreign Operations Director of Belavia Igor Cherginets has said.
“Now, taking into account the additional flight to Kyiv and the opening of the flights to Odesa in November, passenger flow to Ukraine has tripled. Today we open the flight to Kharkiv. I think that the number of passengers on the Belarus-Ukraine route will continue growing,” he told reporters in Kharkiv.
He said that the occupancy of seats for Kyiv flights is very high, and the Odesa flights are approaching this level.
Belavia does not plan to increase frequency of flights from Minsk to Moscow.
KYIV. Dec 18 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Hyundai Corporation is mulling the possibility of creating a joint Ukrainian-South Korean venture in Lviv region, the press service of the Lviv Regional Administration has reported.
The press service said that the issue was discussed at a meeting of Lviv Regional Administration Head Oleh Syniutka with a representative of Hyundai Corporation on Thursday.
The representative of Hyundai Corporation in Kyiv, Ilya Jeong, said that the company has been working on the Ukrainian market and plans to expand its presence, not only in the railway infrastructure area, but in other areas.
“Our goal is to develop projects in Ukraine and conquer new markets of the Central and Eastern Europe. The company wants to develop, and it is important to find a good partner. We plan to create a joint venture. Lviv region is very attractive for us, and we’re discussing the possibility of placing the industrial base here. We would like to see the programs for investors,” the press service said, citing Jeong.
He said that a meeting with the head of one of the enterprises in the region which Hyundai Corporation is mulling as a potential partner was held.
Syniutka said that the advantages of the region are its location, infrastructure, safety and stable political situation.
He said that the region helps to realize investment projects and there will not be problems with selection of skilled specialists.
KYIV. Dec 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The self-administration of clinics could become a catalyst for the development of inbound medical tourism in Ukraine, but to start the process it is needed to get support from lawmakers and the readiness of hospitals and physicians, experts that announced the creation of the Inbound Medical Tourism Club in Ukraine – inUkraine – have stated.
“Ukraine is a competitive country in the field of medical tourism, we want to make it a long-term project but not a one-time campaign,” the president of the inUkraine club, the director of JK Consulting Group, Yulia Khomych, said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine.
“Inbound medical tourism could be a stimulus for the development of the health care system. Foreign patients are the resource that will provide our clinics and resorts with the opportunity not only to survive but also develop and provide a high level of services,” Vice President of the Association of Physicians in Medical Tourism Inna Daschenko said.
She also stressed that for the development of inbound medical tourism it is necessary to conduct work with foreign experts, as well as provide them with information tours in Ukrainian health care institutions.
KYIV. Dec 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Draft Tax Code proposed by the government provides for the reimbursement for value added tax (VAT) on exports of grain and industrial crops.
“Yes, there will be VAT refunds for grain exports,” Minister of Agricultural Policy and Food Oleksiy Pavlenko said at a briefing in Kyiv.
According to him, initially the ministry asked the Finance Ministry to allocate UAH 4 billion for the program to support agricultural producers, but in the current economic conditions it managed to foresee only existing support mechanisms: compensation of interest rates on loans and the program to support livestock breeding.
As reported, the draft budget for 2016, registered by the government in the Verkhovna Rada on September 14, 2015 under No. 300, provides for the support for farmers in the amount of UAH 350 million, of which UAH 300 million will be used to cheapen loans in the agricultural sector, while UAH 50 million will be spent on support for livestock breeding.
KYIV. Dec 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in 2015 implemented 130 projects worth more than EUR1.5 million under the program of advisory support to small and medium businesses in Ukraine, Small Business Support National Program Manager at EBRD Ekaterina Rigg has said.
“This year more than EUR1.5 million has been granted to small and medium businesses… We plan to double [the figure in 2016],” she said at a press conference.
Rigg stressed that the number of projects and the size of grants planned for 2016 would be determined within a month after the analysis of the availability of donor resources provided by the European Union, the governments of Sweden and the United States.
According to her, the increase in support for small businesses is due to the constant rise in the number of applications from companies. The particularly relevant is the program of promoting exports to the markets of the EU, the United States, Canada, and the Middle East. Today companies often need help in the development of export strategy, market research, quality management systems, the development of high-quality online portals in foreign languages.
KYIV. Dec 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine and Turkey will intensify the negotiations on the signing of the free trade zone agreement with the next round of the negotiations scheduled for early 2016 in Turkey.
The Ukrainian and Turkish delegations reached the agreement at the meeting during the 10th conference of WTO ministries in Nairobi (Kenya), Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Trade Representative of Ukraine Natalia Mykolska has said.
“Yesterday a meeting with the delegation from Turkey was held. It is not a secret for anyone that now our relations are being reloaded. This concerns both trade and investment,” she wrote on her Facebook page on Wednesday.
Mykolska said that the sides agreed to hold a meeting of the interagency commission in the first quarter of 2016 and try not to apply restrictive measures, and discuss the proposals to increase goods turnover and investment projects in the agricultural sector, aviation and IT at the expert level.
“We’ve discussed many issues from increasing exports of rolled metal and grain and oilseeds to cooperation in the area of soap operas,” she said.
