Business news from Ukraine

KYIV. May 13 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) forecasts that Ukraine will harvest 58.925 million tonnes of grain in the coming agricultural year (July 2016-June 2017) and export 31.83 million tonnes of grain.

Ukraine’s feed grain harvest will total 34.925 million tonnes, including 24 million tonnes of corn, the USDA said. Ukraine will also harvest 7.8 million tonnes of barley and 24 million tonnes of wheat.

The USDA forecasts Ukrainian wheat exports at 11.5 million tonnes in the 2016/2017 farm year. Feed grain exports will amount to 20.33 million tonnes, including 17 million tonnes of corn.

Ukraine estimates grain harvest in 2015 at 59.96 million tonnes, which is 6.1% less than a year earlier, the State Statistics Service reported.

Grain exports in the past farm year totaled 34.6 million tonnes, including 18.837 million tonnes of corn, 11.234 million tonnes of wheat, 4.46 million tonnes of barley and 280,000 tonnes of other grain crops.

The Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry forecasts grain exports in the 2015/2016 farm year will total 37 million tonnes. The Ukrainian Grain Association expects the exports to weigh in at 36 million tonnes.

KYIV. May 13 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Cabinet of Ministers on May 11 decided to allocate UAH 134 million for building the Odesa-Reni highway, Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman has said.

“You can already count on this resource and use it to the full,” the prime minister told the leadership of Odesa region at a conference call.

As reported, in late April President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko held a meeting with Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan and Head of Odesa Regional State Administration Mikheil Saakashvili to accelerate the construction of the Odesa-Reni road. The officials defined sources of funding from the national budget, customs revenues and those from EU states. It was also agreed the construction will begin in late May.

KYIV. May 13 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine has officially joined the European program to strengthen the competitiveness and sustainability of small and medium businesses (COSME, 2014-2020) with a total budget of EUR2.3 billion, according to a posting on the website of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

“Ukraine’s participation in COSME is the next step in the process of Ukrainian economic integration with the EU and the symbol of increasing the role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) as a driver of the Ukrainian economy,” Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade Yulia Klymenko said.

The corresponding agreement on Ukraine’s participation in the EU program was signed in Brussels by European Commission Director General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs Lowri Evans and Representative of Ukraine in the European Union Mykola Tochytsky. The next step is the ratification of the agreement by parliament.

The program for the current year that is available for Ukraine consists of 25 sub-programs, which are classified in three areas: simplifying SMEs’ entering foreign markets, improving competitiveness and creating a culture of doing business. The program supports projects on various subjects, including clusters, tourism, chemical industry, facilitating access to public procurement, administrative burden reduction and protection of intellectual property rights for companies operating in countries which are not EU members.

KYIV. May 13 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Cabinet of Ministers has approved the allocation of UAH 1.1 billion from the State Fund for Regional Development for financing regional projects in 11 regions of the country, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has said.

“We’ve approved the State Regional Development Fund: UAH 1.1 billion will be spent on the projects you have filed for approval,” he said at a meeting with the heads of regional administrations.

Earlier Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities Services Hennadiy Zubko reported the interdepartmental commission had recommended the approval of 219 projects submitted by 11 regions: Vinnytsia, Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk, Zakarpattia, Kyiv, Poltava, Rivne, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Khmelnytsky regions and Kyiv.

“The commission recommended the Cabinet of Ministers approve projects with the funding of UAH 1.010 billion. Among them, in particular, is UAH 955,639 to repay creditor indebtedness formed at the expense of the 2015 fund. The unallocated balance of funds stands at UAH 1.99 billion,” the vice premier said.

KYIV. May 11 (Interfax-Ukraine) – PJSC State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine has fulfilled a contract for the supply of 5,000 tonnes of flour by sea to Libya, according to the company’s website.

“Such an agreement for the state-owned corporation is a new experience in sales of flour in vessel shipments. We are the only company that signed a contract in this marketing year,” reads the report citing head of the processing department Viacheslav Tsehelnyk.

According to him, the corporation plans to continue expanding the geography of flour exports in vessel shipments.

The corporation will continue implementing plans for processing and intends to rank first in flour exports from Ukraine.

As reported, the corporation plans by 2019 to increase exports of flour by 9 times, to 280,000 tonnes. In 2015, the corporation exported 32,000 tonnes of flour, in 2016 plans to reach the figure of 60,000 tonnes.

KYIV. May 11 (Interfax-Ukraine) – ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih (Dnipropetrovsk region) has almost completely stopped shipments of steel products to the Russian Federation due to economic inexpediency, but could resume deliveries if market prices increase.

“We don’t sell much in Russia. We can start supplies there. But our sales are very different from what there were before,” CEO of PJSC ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih Paramjit Kahlon said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine in Kyiv.

According to him, the recovery of the market started on March 15 this year and steel prices have grown slightly. However, prices in the Chinese market again decreased from May 2 to May 9.

“Time will show whether it was a local or global fall,” the top manager said.

Speaking on March 21 at the event, entitled “The domestic mining and steel market of Ukraine: problems and prospects”, Deputy director general of ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih for cooperation with state authorities and foreign communications Volodymyr Tkachenko said the situation in the steel market is extremely unfavorable this year and that all countries are therefore protecting their manufacturers and their domestic markets.