KYIV. July 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The League of Insurance Organizations of Ukraine (LIOU) plans to expand directions of the operation of the financial committee, creating the investment division headed by the chief of the investment department of OTP Capital asset management company and a member of LIOU, Taras Yeleiko, the league said in a press release.
According to the report, the decision was made at a meeting of the financial committee on July 15, 2015.
The financial committee will be renamed the financial and investment committee.
The structure of reserves of insurance companies and yield from them, strategies to manage insurance reserves within legal restrictions will be coordinated by the investment division. The analysis of the banking market, limits for banks with investment rating, tools with fixed yield, current yield will be conducted, and the macroeconomic indicators and the hryvnia exchange rate forecasts will be drawn up.
According to the document, at the meeting special attention was paid to the discussion and approval of proposals of LIOU members to the draft resolution of the national commission for financial service markets regulation on approving mandatory criteria and requirements for adequacy, diversification of insurers’ assets and their quality.
KYIV. July 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Public joint-stock company State Food-Grain Corporation exported around 19,000 tonnes of flour in the2014/15 agricultural year (July-June), the company has reported, referring to the head of the corporation’s processing department Viacheslav Tsehelnyk.
“According to the calculations of APK-Inform agency, State Food-Grain Corporation was second among exporters of wheat flour in the 2014/15 agri-year. The corporation was fourth among supplies of flour products abroad,” Tsehelnyk said.
He said that in 2015/16 agri-year, the corporation plans to supply around 60,000 tonnes of wheat flour abroad and become a leader among exporters.
“We plan to expand sales markets for flour products to the following countries: China, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, Georgia, Slovakia and Azerbaijan,” he said.
As reported, the Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry appointed deputy director of Ukrspyrt Oleksandr Niman as deputy board chairman of State Food-Grain Corporation on July 8, 2015.
In August 2010, the government decided to create the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine. The corporation has a chain of branches, comprised of grain storage facilities, flourmills, fodder factories and a cereals factory. The 53 subdivisions of the corporation can store a total of 3.75 million tonnes of grain, which includes the grain handling capacities of Odesa and Mykolaiv ports of around 2.5 million tonnes of grain cargo per year.
The State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine in late 2012 received the first tranche of $1.5 billion from the Export-Import Bank of China. The funds were to be allocated to carry out spot and forward purchases of four million tonnes of grain which would be shipped to China.
China National Machinery Industry Complete Engineering Corporation (CMCEC) is the operator under the contract, which was signed for a period of 15 years.
The corporation plans to export 3.5 million tonnes of grain by late 2015 under the Chinese contract.
KYIV. July 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Grain stocks held at agricultural enterprises in Ukraine, apart from small ones, and at enterprises that store and process grain, amounted to 7.9 million tonnes as of July 1, 2015, which is 12.9% up year-over-year, Ukraine’s State Statistics Service has reported.
Wheat stocks amounted to 3.2 million tonnes, barley stocks stood at 1.5 billion tonnes, corn at 2.9 million tonnes tonnes, and rye at 100,000 tonnes.
Grain reserves at just agricultural enterprises weighed in at 4.5 million tonnes as of July 1, which was 17.7% more than a year earlier, including 1.6 million tonnes of wheat, 800,000 tonnes of barley, and 1.8 million tonnes of corn.
The statistics service’s figures indicate that sunflower seed reserves amounted to 1 million tonnes as of the said date, which was 33.5% down year-over-year, including 500,000 tonnes stored at agricultural enterprises (19.9% up year-over-year).
Data does not include the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea and Sevastopol and a part of the antiterrorist operation zone.
KYIV. July 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine’s National Commission for Energy, Housing and Utilities Services Regulation (NCER) has expanded the investment program of public joint-stock company Ukrhydroenergo by almost 1.5 times or UAH 540 million, to UAH 1.696 billion (VAT not included).
The commission made the decision at a meeting on Tuesday.
“We haven’t increased the tariff. These are funds that we managed to find thanks to saving and cutting credit rates. UAH 540 million will be sent to the completion of their unit of Dnistrovska pumped storage hydro power plant, which we plan to launch by the Power Engineers’ Day,” Ukrhydroenergo Head Ihor Syrota told Interfax-Ukraine.
As reported, in late December the commission approved Ukrhydroenergo’s investment program in the amount of UAH 824.652 million, and in early June the program was expanded to UAH 1.156 billion (VAT not included).
Electricity generation by Ukrhydroenergo’s hydroelectric plants and pumped storage hydroelectric plants fell by 37.1% in 2014, to 8.546 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh).
Ukrhydroenergo operates all of the major hydroelectric power plants on the Ukrainian sections of the Dnipro and Dniester rivers. Their total electricity generating capacity amounts to gigawatts. The Energy and Coal Industry Ministry owns 100% of the shares of the company.
KYIV. July 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine’s foreign trade surplus in goods in May 2015 amounted to $332.3 million, compared to $230.2 million in April, $288.1 million in March and $133.5 million in February 2015, the State Statistics Service has said.
The service said that the surplus grew by 81.9% year-over-year.
According to its data, exports in May 2015 decreased by 41.2%, to $2.94 billion, while imports fell by 45.9%, to $2.61 billion.
The pace of decline in foreign trade accelerated, especially for imports: in April 2015 exports of goods from Ukraine fell by 39.3% year-over-year and imports dropped by 39.2%. In absolute indicators, in May 2015 exports fell by 4.3% compared to the previous month and imports decreased by 8.2%.
In January-May 2015 exports of goods fell by 35.9% year-over-year, to $15.44 billion, while imports declined by 38.8%, to $14.53 billion, while the surplus improved by 2.5 times, to $910 million.
The service said that the Russia’s share of the exports’ structure fell from 19.5% in January-May 2014 to 12.1% in January-May 2015, and the share of imports fell from 29.8% to 16.4%.
The share of supplies to China grew from 5.4% to 7.4%, to Turkey – from 6.2% to 7.5%, to Egypt from 5% to 6.1%, to Italy – from 4.9% to 5.2%, to India from 3.3% to 4%, to Germany from 2.9% to 3.5%, while to Poland it fell from 5.2% to 5%.
The Hungary’s share of total imports grew from 1.9% to 5.5%, and Germany’s share – from 8.1% to 11.2%. Supplies from China rose from 9% to 10.5%, from Poland – from 5.1% to 5.9%, France – from 2.5% to 2.8%, the Untied States – from 2.8% to 4.1% and from Belarus they did not change, being 6.4%.
The ratio of imports coverage by exports in January-May 2015 was 1.06 (1.02 year-over-year).
The country traded with partners from 205 countries.
The share of non-precious metals and products made of them of the Ukrainian exports was 27.6%, that for crops – 18.7%, mechanical and electric machines – 9.9%, oil and mineral products – 8.5% each, finished food – 6.4%, chemical products – 6.3%.
Exports of goods to the EU countries totaled $5.165 billion or 33.5% of total exports in January-May 2015 and it fell by 35.9% year-over-year.
The share of mineral products of total imports was 32.9%, mechanical and electric machines – 14.5%, chemical products – 14.1%, polymers, plastic and products made of them – 6.7%, non-precious metals and products made of them – 5%, finished food – 4.4% and crops – 4.3%.
Imports of goods from the EU totaled $6.154 billion or 42.4% of total imports and it fell by 25.6% year-over-year.
As reported, the statistics data differ significantly from NBU data which takes into account informal trade. According to the balance of payments previously published by the NBU, the deficit of Ukraine’s foreign trade in goods in May totaled $162 million, while in April it was $114 million and in May 2014 it was $541 million. Exports fell by 42.3%, to $2.71 billion, while imports fell by 45.2%, to $2.87 billion.
NBU said that the deficit of Ukraine’s foreign trade with goods in January-May 2015 totaled $1.29 billion, which is 2.5 times better year-over-year: exports fell by 36.4%, to $14.32 billion and imports declined by 39.2%, to $15.6 billion.
KYIV. July 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The EU positively assess the work Ukraine has done since the European Commission’s report on implementation of the action plan on liberalization of the visa regime with the EU for Ukraine was posted on May 8, 2015, the press service of the Foreign Ministry reported.
At the meeting of high-ranking officials involved in EU-Ukraine visa-free dialogue on Wednesday, the EU also expressed hope steps planned by Ukraine would be realized in time and ensure the implementation of remaining recommendations.
“The parties state a common position that the implementation of recommendations is very important for the preparation of a positive report and getting the recommendation for introducing visa-free regime for Ukrainian citizens,” reads the statement.
The Ukrainian delegation was led by Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine on European integration Olena Zerkal, the EU – by Director General of the Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME) Matthias Ruete.
