KYIV. Feb 23 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers on Wednesday approved bills drawn up by the Finance Ministry required for the implementation of the intergovernmental agreement with Hungary on financial cooperation, development of border checkpoints, infrastructure and maintenance of bridges on the joint state border.
According to a posting on the website of the Finance Ministry, the government approved the bill on ratification of the framework agreement between the Ukrainian and Hungarian governments on the provision of a loan as tied aid and the bill amending the bill on Ukraine’s national budget for 2017.
The documents allow receiving the soft-term financing of EUR 50 million to implement investment projects linked to the improvement of roads going to the Ukrainian-Hungarian border.
According to the proposed amendments to the national budget, Ukravtodor would prepare and implement of the relevant agreements, while the loan will be serviced using funds from the Ukrainian budget.
The funds are provided for 18 years and a half. The credit rate is 0%. A grace period of one year and a half is foreseen.
KYIV. Feb 23 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian metallurgical enterprises in January 2017 increased steel production by 8.5% compared with January 2016, to 2.103 million tonnes, remaining on the 10th place in the ranking among 66 countries, the world’s major manufacturers of these products, compiled by the World Steel Association (Worldsteel).
Growth in steel production in December was fixed in all countries from the top ten states.
The top ten steel makers in January looks as follows: China (67.2 million tonnes, a 7.4% rise), Japan (9.002 million tonnes, a 2.7% rise), India (8.4 million tonnes, 12% up), the United States (6.874 million tonnes, a rise of 6.5%), Russia (6.183 million tonnes, an 11.6% rise), South Korea (5.86 million tonnes, a 3.2% rise), Germany (3.649 million tonnes, 1.2% up), Turkey (2.93 million tonnes, 12.8% up), Brazil (2.856 million tonnes, 14.4% up), and Ukraine (2.103 million tonnes, 8.5% up).
In general, 66 countries in January 2017 produced 136.514 million tonnes of steel, which is 7% more than in January 2016.
As reported, in 2016 the top ten steel makers included China (808.37 million tonnes, an increase of 1.2%), Japan (104.772 million tonnes, a drop of 0.3%), India (95.618 million tonnes, an increase of 7.4%), the United States (78.619 million tonnes, a drop of 0.3%), Russia (70.8 million tonnes, a drop of 0.1%), South Korea (68.567 million tonnes, a drop of 1.6%), Germany (42.082 million tonnes, a drop of 1.4%), Turkey (33.163 million tonnes, an increase of 5.2%), Brazil (30.212 million tonnes, a drop of 9.2%), and Ukraine (24.221 million tonnes, an increase of 5.5%).
In general, the 66 countries produced 1.604 billion tonnes of steel in 2016, which was 0.7% up year-over-year.
KYIV. Feb 22 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Ukrainian representative office of GEFCO Group, one of the leaders in the field of international logistics, has signed a contract with a subsidiary of Konica Minolta in Ukraine for providing logistics services for a three-year period.
According to GEFCO, partnership relations between the two companies began in 2016 with a pilot project on warehouse logistics.
“A dialogue between the companies began with the issue of providing storage facilities in Kyiv. Later it turned out that the solution of this problem was considered by the management of Konica Minolta Ukraine as part of the strategy of transforming its supply in the market. The detailed analysis revealed those parts of the supply chain, the improvement of which would enable the company to enhance efficiency in future,” GEFCO Ukraine CEO Oksana Yakovleva said.
GEFCO Group has more than 300 sites in 150 countries with a staff of 12,000 employees. In 2015 the group’s turnover was EUR4.2 billion.
Konica Minolta Ukraine is a subsidiary and an official representative of Konica Minolta Inc., Tokyo, Japan. The company specializes in business consulting, implementation and management of workflow systems.
KYIV. Feb 22 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The top priority for Ukraine is the provision for reliable and safe movement of goods on the Europe-Asia route via the creation of digital corridors.
The press service of Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry has reported that Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan gave this information at the 79th session of the Inland Transport Committee (ITC) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).
“The ‘digital corridor’ implies the use of modern information systems providing for continuous monitoring of cargo flows, the tool for electronic cooperation of foreign economic operators with transport and shipping companies and public oversight agencies and the organization of exchange of data in the volumes required for business processes of the system participants,” he said.
The minister said that Ukraine has joined the EU e-Infrastructure project. The country must toughen legislation in the area of digital technologies and create institutional preconditions for digital development for this project.
Creation of digital transport corridors is to allow tracking cargo online without any territorial, technical or legal restrictions and the organization of business processes on the basis of e-documents, he said.
“However, despite the fact that the creation of digital transport corridors is plans for the near future, today we are taking measures to relax the trade rules,” the minister said.
