The industrial and construction group Kovalska has upgraded the equipment at its Kovalska Lab Innovation and Technology Center, investing UAH 6.6 million of its own funds and international grants in the first stage of modernization, according to its press service.
“The first to be modernized was the raw materials intake control laboratory: we carried out a comprehensive renovation, purchased modern equipment, and rearranged the space, dismantling the old foundations. We also purchased the latest laboratory equipment from leading European manufacturers: German Testing, Italian Controls, and Matest,” said Viktoria Spivak, director of Kovalska Lab.
It is noted that the new equipment will allow expanding the range of testing capabilities of the laboratory in accordance with European requirements, as well as increasing the productivity of work and the accuracy of the results obtained, since all devices operate in automatic mode. Specialized software minimizes the human factor in the measurement process.
Among the new additions is high-precision equipment for measuring the main quality indicators of cement, active mineral additives, and inert fillers.
According to Spivak, the company introduces dozens of new products into production every year.
Kovalska Lab has been operating as Kovalska’s in-house R&D division for over 13 years. It brings together more than 40 specialists and covers 10 areas of work, from the development of innovative concretes to product certification. The laboratory has recently opened its services to external customers. Its range of capabilities includes laboratory and field testing, new product development, customized technical solutions, and full technological support for projects.
According to Spivak, the company systematically invests in the development of its own R&D department, updates its material and technical equipment, and improves its research approaches in order to be able to develop product recipes tailored to customer needs.
The Kovalskaya Industrial and Construction Group is Ukraine’s largest manufacturer of building materials and one of the leading developers. The company’s products are represented by a number of brands, including Beton vid Kovalskoi, Avenue paving slabs, and Siltek building mixtures. The enterprises carry out a full cycle of work from raw material extraction and product manufacturing to the construction of buildings for various purposes. As of April 2025, the Group’s production facilities are operating in the Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Lviv, and Chernihiv regions. Kovalskaya’s aerated concrete plant is located in the temporarily occupied territory in Nova Kakhovka.
A pig breeding company in Lviv region has decided to build its own feed mill, according to KMZ Industries, which will supply elevator equipment for the plant.
According to the report, to ensure the storage capacity for the necessary raw materials and their further processing into compound feed, two cone silos with a total capacity of 1,020 tons for barley and wheat will be installed, one silo with a capacity of 143 tons for corn, and two silos with a capacity of 41 tons each for soybean and sunflower meal.
“Products from all silos will be fed in specific proportions to the feed line according to the recipe for further production of feed for pigs, chickens, etc. The capacity of the first line of the plant will be 2 tons/hour. In the future, it is planned to increase it to 10 tons/hour in order to produce feed not only for its own pig farm, but also for sale on the domestic market,” said Anton Goncharuk, regional representative of KMZ Industries.
For the transportation of agricultural products, a bucket elevator and three chain conveyors with a capacity of 50 tons/hour were selected, as well as five screw conveyors for feeding raw materials directly to the feed mill.
KMZ Industries is the largest manufacturer of elevator equipment in Ukraine and produces a full range of products, including silos, grain dryers, transport equipment, and separators, as well as providing automation and installation services.
According to the company, it has built more than 5,000 facilities. KMZ Industries silos with a total volume of more than 12.5 million cubic meters are currently in operation.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has proposed creating a transport corridor linking the Greek port of Alexandroupolis with Odessa in Ukraine via Varna in Bulgaria and Constanta in Romania.
“I would like Odessa to be at one end of an ambitious, comprehensive project to develop connections that would start in the port of Alexandroupolis, pass through Varna, Constanta, and finally reach Odessa. This is a project that could be proposed for EU funding,” he said at the 4th Ukraine-South-East Europe Summit in Odessa on Wednesday.
According to the prime minister, the corridor would include transport railways, power lines, and gas pipelines, and it would be a project that “would provide an additional transport corridor for Ukraine, much faster than transporting goods by sea.” He also said that the project would provide “a clear and tangible vision of how Ukraine’s integration into the EU can really change the lives of Ukrainians.”
Mitsotakis also assured that Greece would always be ready to contribute any expert or technical support to bring EU candidates closer to accession.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić arrived in Odessa to participate in the Ukraine-Southeast Europe Summit. This is his first visit to Ukraine in 12 years in office.
The event, organized by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, was attended by leaders from 12 countries in the region. After the official talks, Vucic and Zelensky held a private meeting.
During the discussion, they discussed assistance in rebuilding Ukraine after the destruction caused by Russian missile and drone strikes. Vucic also expressed Serbia’s readiness to contribute to the restoration of infrastructure, stressing the importance of restoring regional balance and stability.
Source: https://t.me/relocationrs/1065
The All-Ukrainian Bakers’ Association (VAP) and the Union of Millers of Ukraine In 2024, for the second year in a row, they refused to sign a memorandum with the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food and grain associations due to disregard for the interests and arguments of processors, said VAP head Alexander Taranenko in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
“A memorandum is a document for which no one bears legal responsibility for violating. In addition, the VAP and the Ukrainian Millers’ Union opposed the volumes specified in the memorandum (a limit on grain exports of 16.2 million tons), as this leads to the export of very large volumes of food grain from Ukraine, which significantly affects domestic bread prices,” he explained.
Taranenko emphasized that processing enterprises insist on distinguishing between food and feed grain when fixing grain export volumes. At the same time, they have nothing against the export of feed grain in any quantity, since Ukraine grows more than enough of it.
Speaking about food grain, the expert noted that in recent years, as a result of various events – climate change, military actions and economic situations – the quality of the grain harvest in Ukraine has significantly deteriorated.
“While in 2020, food wheat accounted for 57% of the harvest, in 2024 it will account for only 27%. Accordingly, the volume of grain suitable for processing is even smaller, because the aforementioned 57% and 27% include wheat of the first, second, and third grades. Not all third-grade wheat is suitable for processing into flour. This means that less than 20% of the total harvest in 2024 was suitable for processing into flour,” Taranenko stated.
According to him, these nuances are completely ignored by grain experts. At the beginning of the harvest, the first wave of exports to foreign markets includes a large amount of food wheat, which causes an increase in domestic bread prices.
If the authorities had taken certain measures, such as introducing export segmentation, forming domestic reserves, creating state reserves or financing their creation, the rise in bread prices would not have been so significant and sharp, the head of the industry association is convinced.
Taranenko recalled that the State Reserve, the Agrarian Fund, and the State Food and Grain Company had previously operated on this principle. They bought grain at reasonable prices during mass sales, stored it, processed it, and when prices rose sharply, they intervened in the market by putting a certain amount of flour up for sale and holding back price increases.
“This mechanism existed and worked quite well. It was abandoned because mice ate tens of thousands of tons of grain. In fact, this does not indicate the ineffectiveness of the mechanism, but rather insufficient control. The mechanism itself is capable of ensuring the stability of bread prices and sales,” the head of the VAP summed up.
Bakers' Association, Rising bread prices, state intervention
The DIM Group of Companies is launching its own long-term installment program in hryvnia with an annual interest rate of 10% for the purchase of housing in the developer’s projects, the group’s press service told Interfax-Ukraine.
“We are approached by buyers who dream of owning their own apartment or need to improve their living conditions, but for one reason or another do not qualify for government programs. It is for them that we have developed a new product to meet the growing demand among Ukrainians who cannot take advantage of the state program “eOselya” but are interested in purchasing quality housing in the “comfort+” segment and above,” said Alexander Nasirovsky, managing partner of the DIM group of companies, in a statement.
Under the terms of the program, the installment plan is provided for a period of 10 years with the possibility of early repayment. The price per square meter is fixed in the contract in hryvnia. The down payment is 30% of the cost. The interest rate is 10% per annum, and for military personnel, State Emergency
Service employees, and military medics, it is 8%.
The developer will test the pilot installment plan in the capital’s residential complexes Metropolis, Lucky Land, and Park Lake City, as well as on a limited basis in the Olegiv Podil club house in June-July to assess real demand among citizens. DIM plans to scale the program to all of the developer’s residential projects.
As reported, the DIM group of companies notes the advisability of increasing the maximum loan amount issued under the state program “eOselya” in proportion to the growth in the cost per square meter. According to Nasykovsky, in 2025, the cost of housing will grow by 15-20%.
The DIM development company’s portfolio consists of real estate in Kiev and the surrounding area with a total area of more than 900,000 square meters. More than 3,600 apartments have been commissioned, and more than 356,000 square meters of residential and commercial space has been built. Six projects with a total area of over 346,000 square meters are currently under construction.
