President of the European Council Charles Michel said that the European Council has decided to start negotiations on the accession of Ukraine and Moldova to the EU.
“The European Council has decided to start negotiations on the accession of Ukraine and Moldova. The European Council has granted candidate status to Georgia. And the EU will start negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina as soon as the necessary degree of compliance with the membership criteria is achieved, and invited the Commission to submit a report by March with a view to making such a decision,” he wrote on Twitter.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has tripled its grant support under the Competitive Economy of Ukraine program to $11 million, the Ministry of Economy reported on its website on Thursday.
It is noted that the decision was made taking into account the large number of applications and significant interest from processing enterprises.
The increase in funding will also increase the number of grants by about three times, to about 75.
It is specified that the grants will support businesses in the production of innovative products, modernization of production, reduction of manual labor, import substitution and export growth to fill niches previously occupied by Russian and Belarusian products, and localization of production of goods necessary for recovery.
USAID’s Competitive Economy Program supports Ukrainian businesses to improve their competitiveness in Ukraine’s domestic and international markets, helps build a simplified and transparent business climate, and provides Ukrainian companies with opportunities to take advantage of international trade.
Ukraine plans to start producing 50 thousand chips per month in three years after the start of construction of the factory, said Valeria Ionan, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation for European Integration.
“We will thus meet the needs of the domestic market, as well as create a basis for exports,” she said at the presentation of Ukraine’s global innovation vision on Thursday.
According to her, chip production in Ukraine will supply most of the country’s industrial sectors.
At the same time, she did not name any specific dates for the start of construction.
Ionan noted that Ukraine will create a network of fabless companies (a company that does not have its own factory) for automated chip design, which will allow it to enter the chip market and take a position in the global semiconductor market.
For his part, Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation, Education, Science, and Technology – Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said that the Ministry of Digital Transformation plans to develop and present a chip in 2024.
According to him, the Ministry of Digital Transformation is working with various companies in this direction, but no other details have been disclosed so far.
State-owned Ukreximbank is the first in the Ukrainian market to conduct a public sale of pledged property – jewelry made of precious metals and gems – through the OpenMarket electronic trading system (SE SETAM of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine).
Unique nature of the sale
For a long period of time, the sale of pledged gold jewelry was complicated due to the lack of clear procedures that would allow the sale of jewelry at public auctions. Until 2022, jewelry was redeemed in favor of the state through the State Storage of Precious Metals, but due to a lack of funds in the budget, this process was “frozen”.
In 2022, a new Procedure for the Sale of Jewelry and Other Household Items Made of Precious Metals in the Course of Enforcement of Court Decisions and Decisions of Other Authorities was adopted. The Procedure, approved in February 2022, provides for a number of examinations prior to public bidding to determine the metal sample, determine the characteristics of gemstone inserts, etc.
Ukreximbank is the first bank in Ukraine to carry out all the necessary procedures for the sale of jewelry within the framework of enforcement proceedings, involving the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine and the Central State Assay Control Enterprise.
Thus, within the framework of the enforcement proceedings initiated in accordance with the requirements of the court decision on debt collection in favor of Ukreximbank, for the first time, a lengthy and extremely complicated procedure was completed from the preparation of the act of inventory and seizure of the debtor’s property, namely, jewelry made of precious metals and precious stones to the publication of the relevant announcements on the platform of the electronic system of SE SETAM on the date of the scheduled electronic auction.
The procedure for obtaining the statutory expertise is regulated and complex, but the coordination of the actions of the recoverer and the state enforcement officer made it possible to complete it in the shortest possible time. The property appraisal report, on the basis of which the starting price of the property put up for sale was formed, received by the state enforcement officer, contains references to
– an act of examination of valuables that have been accepted by the Central State Assay Control Enterprise;
– the act of the results of the examination of jewelry by an employee of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine;
– the act of gemological examination of inserts.
Also, this is one of the rare cases when the Bank manages to successfully foreclose on such type of collateral as goods in circulation, usually when the borrower is recognized as a problematic borrower and the goods are no longer available.
Terms of sale
Lot No. 1
The starting price of the lot is UAH 1,972,320.00.
The total weight of the items is 1,355 kg.
The guarantee fee for participation in the auction is UAH 98,616.00.
The auction date is December 29, 2023.
Register for the auction, detailed description of the auction conditions and the lot itself by following the link.
Lot No. 2
The starting price of the lot is UAH 594 520.00.
The total weight of the products is 482.56 g.
The guarantee fee for participation in the auction is UAH 29,726.00.
The auction step is UAH 11,890.40.
The auction date is December 19, 2023.
To register for the auction, for a detailed description of the auction conditions and the lot itself, please follow the link.
Lot No. 3
The starting price of the lot is UAH 75 330.00.
The total weight of the products is 61.13 g.
The guarantee fee for participation in the auction is UAH 3,766.50.
Auction step is UAH 2,259.90.
The auction date is December 19, 2023.
To register for the auction, for a detailed description of the auction conditions and the lot itself, please follow the link.
The OpenMarket auction (SE SETAM of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine) is a simple and effective means of selling and purchasing property via the Internet. The online auction has been operating throughout Ukraine since 2014, and the total amount of sales since its launch is UAH 21.4 billion.
OTP Bank continues to develop the OTP Bank UA application and fill it with new features: from now on, it has the ability to pay for TV and Internet. The service is free of charge, and it is easy and convenient to use, said Oleg Klymenko, member of the Management Board responsible for retail business development of OTP Bank.
“A new feature that our customers have been expecting from us has been added to the application. It is important for users, because with today’s fast pace of life, there is often a need to pay for a TV package here and now, right before watching. Or you need to get access to the Internet urgently, and you need to pay the bill. We always try to learn as much as we can about our customers’ “pains” in order to offer the most useful solutions in our gentle mobile banking. Now we have the opportunity to pay utility bills in OTP Bank UA,” said Mr. Klymenko.
To use the new service, the customer needs to select a card, go to the “Payments” menu item, click on “Utilities and Internet”, then “Internet and TV payment”. In the search field, enter the name of the company. After that, the system will request a personal account, which is used to identify the service user. Finally, the customer needs to enter the amount and confirm the payment.
A repeat payment can be made in a few clicks: go to the payment history, click “Repeat payment”, enter the amount and confirm. You can find your payment history and get a receipt in the list of card transactions or in the “Utilities and Internet” section.
In November 2023, TAS Insurance Group (Kyiv) increased the volume of premiums collected by 96.1% to UAH 145 million compared to the same period in 2022, according to the group’s website.
According to the company, hull insurance payments increased by 74% to UAH 37.54 million compared to November last year, which is 25.89% of the company’s total claims for the month.
More than a third of payments (37.18%) accounted for MOTPL, or UAH 53.92 million, which is 93.8% higher than the corresponding figure for the 11th month of 2022.
The insurer’s payments under the Green Card also increased by 2.16 times to UAH 26 million, which is equal to 17.93% of the company’s total payments in November 2023.
TAS Group’s VHI payments increased by 2.31 times to UAH 21.83 million, which amounted to 15.06% of the company’s total claims for the month.
Under property insurance contracts, the group paid UAH 2.38 million, which is 8.5 times more than in the same period last year.
The company’s claims paid under other insurance contracts amounted to UAH 3.33 million for the month.
TAS Insurance Group was registered in 1998. It is a universal company offering more than 80 types of insurance products in various types of voluntary and compulsory insurance. It has an extensive regional network of 28 regional offices and branches.
