Pivdenny Mining and Processing Plant, PJSC (Pivdenny Mining and Processing Plant, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast) increased its net profit by 73.5% in January–June of this year compared to the same period last year—to 199.318 million UAH from 114.912 million UAH.
According to the mining and processing plant’s interim report, available to the agency “Interfax-Ukraine,” revenue from ordinary activities for this period decreased to 8,931.263 million UAH from 12,693.475 million UAH.
Retained earnings as of the end of June 2026 amounted to 25,836.844 million UAH.
Iron ore concentrate production for the second quarter of 2026 totaled 1,913.7 thousand metric tons, while sales for this period amounted to 1,906.8 thousand metric tons.
As previously reported, in the first quarter of 2026, Pivdenny GOK saw its net loss increase 8.5-fold compared to the same period in 2025—rising to 866.813 million UAH from 100.859 million UAH. During this period, revenue from ordinary activities decreased to 3,987.535 million UAH from 6,350.714 million UAH.
In January–September 2025, Southern GOK reported a net profit of 389.930 million UAH, whereas in the same period of 2024 it amounted to 2,476.267 million UAH; revenue from ordinary activities increased by 41.3% to 19,020.077 million UAH.
The annual report for 2025 has not yet been published.
Pivdenny GOK is one of Ukraine’s leading producers of iron ore concentrate. It is engaged in the mining and beneficiation of low-grade iron-bearing quartzites to produce iron ore concentrate. The plant’s raw material base consists of quartzites from the Skelevatsky deposit, located in the central part of the Kryvyi Rih iron ore basin.
At the start of the war, Pivdenny GZK was controlled by the Metinvest Group and Lanebrook Ltd. (formerly the majority shareholder of Evraz Group, which withdrew from the group’s shareholder structure in 2018), which acquired a 50% stake in PGZK from the Privat Group (Dnipro) in late 2007.
According to the National Securities and Stock Market Commission’s data for the first quarter of 2026, Zantest Limited holds 29.8815% of the company’s shares, and Jetere Limited (both based in Cyprus and registered at the same address) holds 59.7630%.
The company’s authorized capital is 535.915 million UAH, and the par value of each share is 0.25 UAH.
PJSC “Zaporizhzhia Ferroalloy Plant” (ZZF) reported a 17.2% decrease in net profit for January–June of this year compared to the same period last year, down to 103.958 million UAH.
According to the company’s interim report, published in the disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission, the plant increased its net revenue by 9.1% during the reporting period, to 816.929 million UAH.
Retained earnings as of the end of June of this year amounted to 1 billion 900.380 million UAH.
The management report notes that operating the furnaces in a balancing mode between periods with the highest electricity costs is a strategy the company developed in the first quarter, which helped reduce production losses in the second quarter as well. Constant monitoring and analysis of the electricity market, along with collaboration between the production and finance departments, made it possible to develop and implement measures that optimized production schedules to avoid significant production losses and minimize losses as much as possible: April – estimated reduction in losses of 4.9 million UAH (excluding VAT), including a reduction of 3.6 million UAH due to electricity prices; estimated metal losses due to high electricity prices – 95.3 metric tons; May – estimated reduction in losses of 12.4 million UAH (excluding VAT), including a reduction of 4.18 million UAH due to electricity prices; estimated reduction in metal losses due to high electricity prices – 168.2 metric tons; June – estimated reduction in losses of 3.04 million UAH (excluding VAT), including a reduction attributable to electricity prices of 5.2 million UAH; estimated metal losses due to high electricity prices – 130.8 metric tons.
Regarding electricity costs—during the war, prices for electricity and its transmission more than doubled, solely due to increases in ceiling prices and tariffs for transmission and distribution services. Estimated losses for the second quarter of 2026 amounted to 6.1 million UAH (including VAT), including: – due to an increase in the tariff for electricity transmission services via the NEC “Ukrenergo” (+4% compared to the rate in effect in the first quarter of 2026, or 29.23 UAH/MW (excluding VAT)), additional expenses for the second quarter of 2026 were estimated at 0.88 million UAH (including VAT) – due to an increase in the distribution tariff of JSC “Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo” (+7.1% compared to the rate in effect in the first quarter of 2026, or 20.80 UAH/MW for the first voltage class; +3.7% compared to the rate in effect in the first quarter of 2026, or 102.38 UAH/MW for the second voltage class), additional expenses for the second quarter of 2026 were estimated at 0.42 million UAH (including VAT)—due to an increase in the RDN price caps effective April 30, 2026 (up to 15,000 UAH/MW (excluding VAT) during all hours), the estimated additional expenses for the second quarter of 2026 amounted to – 4.8 million UAH (including VAT).
In addition, due to the inability to promptly sell the purchased electricity, the company incurred additional losses resulting from imbalances—losses caused by ill-considered price caps in the balancing market. If the company does not draw the purchased volume of electricity, the remaining amount is directed to the imbalance market, where the purchase price for the company may be 0.01 UAH per 1 MW. In other words, we buy for 3,000–15,000 UAH but sell for 0.01 UAH. Conversely, if the company purchases more than it needs, the price for the excess is marked up by 5% to as much as 100–8,000%. This alone caused the company to lose 0.2–0.4 million UAH per month, and for the second quarter of 2026, estimated losses totaled 0.58 million UAH, including VAT. New technologies for the production and use of raw materials are being developed.
In June, two pilot-scale production campaigns were conducted: – production of MnS17P10 using the company’s own raw materials from ferromanganese production. The feasibility of production meeting the specified quality characteristics was demonstrated; – production of FMn78 using Grade 1b ore as an alternative to Grade 1 ore with a higher manganese content as the primary element. The results confirmed the feasibility of producing metal with specific quality characteristics.
Measures to optimize staffing levels, which were gradually implemented at the enterprise amid mobilization and to ensure minimal operations, led to a significant reduction in personnel.
“Currently, only the best professionals remain—those who have been working for many years and know and understand ferroalloy production. And this staff has remained, for now, to operate 3 furnaces (out of the 31 available),” the report states.
The actual number of employees as of June 24 of this year is 1,037. At the same time, to maintain the company’s image as one that implements new technological and technical solutions amid a complex economic and political situation, it became necessary to respond promptly to changes in the company’s operating conditions: – a constant search for potential markets for its core and other commercial products; – increasing the competitiveness of its products and, as a result, setting a primary objective; – finding ways to reduce costs in the production of both core and other products.
Based on the results of operations for the second quarter of 2026, the company reports the following key figures: The volume of commercial ferroalloy production amounted to 6,000 metric tons, with 7,800 metric tons sold for a total of 503.6 million UAH, including VAT. During the second quarter of 2026, taxes totaling 18 million UAH were paid to the state and local budgets, including to the state budget: customs duties—4.6 million UAH, military levy – 2.7 million UAH, and environmental tax – 0.2 million UAH; and to the local budget: personal income tax – 9.7 million UAH, and environmental tax – 0.2 million UAH.
In addition, a unified social contribution of 11.6 million UAH was paid. The main achievements of the second quarter include maintaining production operations despite low product prices and the steady rise in electricity and transportation costs. Plans are in place to continue operations within established targets, taking into account best practices across all areas of the company. New methods of motivating and rewarding staff are being developed.
The report notes that to reduce dependence on external factors affecting electricity supply—based on experience with the consequences of power grid failures — the company built and commissioned its own 0.8 MW/h solar power plant in December 2024 to meet its own needs. Since the project’s implementation, 980.6 MW of electricity has been generated. This has reduced electricity procurement costs by 4.51 million UAH and represented a significant step forward in developing the company’s modern, decentralized power supply.
Total sales for the reporting period amounted to 14,554 thousand metric tons of ferroalloys, worth 815.845 million UAH. Exports totaled 3,604 thousand metric tons of ferroalloys (23% of total ferroalloy sales for the first half of 2026).
As previously reported, based on its performance in January–March 2026, ZZF saw its net loss increase 2.4-fold compared to the same period last year—from 34.731 million UAH to 84.689 million UAH, while net revenue increased by 26.3%—to 377.006 million UAH from 298.557 million UAH.
Based on its 2025 results, ZZF reduced its net loss by 98.5% compared to 2024—to 27.962 million UAH from 1 billion 862.784 million UAH. At the same time, the plant increased its net revenue by 55.7%—to 1,522.567 million UAH from 977.660 million UAH.
In 2024, ZZF doubled its net loss compared to the previous year—to 1,862,784 million UAH. At the same time, net revenue decreased by 34.7%, to 977,660 million UAH.
PJSC “Zaporizhzhia Ferroalloy Plant” is one of Ukraine’s two main producers of these products.
According to the National Securities and Stock Market Commission’s data for the fourth quarter of 2025, Matrimax Limited and Soltex Limited each own 22.4486% of the company’s shares, Tapesta Limited owns 18.8903%, Walltron Limited (all based in Cyprus) holds 18.642%, and Halefield Holdings Limited (Belize) holds 7.7508%.
The authorized capital of ZZF PJSC is 227.955 million UAH, and the par value of one share is 0.1 UAH.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) raised its estimate of international reserves at the end of 2026 to $69.7 billion from $64.8 billion, and for 2027 to $73.7 billion from $66.5 billion.
“The transfer of a portion of the foreign currency received into international reserves will lead to their growth to nearly $70 billion by the end of the year. This forecast takes into account increased demand for imports of components for arms production and, accordingly, an expansion in structural demand for foreign currency, which will require the NBU to step up its interventions to meet the economy’s needs while maintaining the stability of the foreign exchange market. “In other words, the NBU’s intermediary role in the foreign exchange market will strengthen,” the National Bank noted in a press release on Thursday.
As previously reported, $11.3 billion was deposited into the government’s foreign exchange accounts at the National Bank in June, including $6.8 billion from the EU and nearly $4.5 billion through World Bank accounts. In addition, Ukraine received $4.4 billion from the European Union as part of the first disbursement of the first defense tranche under the Ukraine Support Loan program; however, these funds were not credited to the country’s international reserves due to their restricted (earmarked) use. In July, Ukraine received another tranche of EUR 3.47 billion from the EU under the Ukraine Support Loan program and a second tranche of approximately $690 million from the IMF. The NBU expects that the total amount of direct budgetary support from partners in 2026 could reach about $54 billion, which will be sufficient to cover the budget deficit.
Foreign buyers purchased $45.3 billion worth of residential real estate in the U.S. between April 2025 and March 2026, a 19.1% decrease from the previous 12 months, according to a report released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) on July 29, 2026. The number of properties purchased by foreigners fell by 14%—from 78,100 to 67,100. This is the second-
lowest figure since 2009, when the NAR began tracking these statistics. The median purchase price was $465,000.
NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun attributed the decline in activity to an overall reduction in international tourism and travel to the United States. According to him, even a slight weakening of the dollar, which boosted foreign buyers’ purchasing power, was unable to offset high prices and limited housing supply.
Among foreign buyers who abandoned planned transactions, 33% were unable to find a suitable property, 28% found prices too high, and 19% encountered difficulties related to immigration regulations. High mortgage rates, inflation, trade policy, and geopolitical uncertainty placed additional pressure on demand.
Canadian citizens accounted for 16% of all foreign purchases, acquiring 10,700 properties worth $5.2 billion. Mexico ranked second with a 14% share and 9,400 transactions totaling $5 billion.
Buyers from China dropped from first to third place in terms of the number of purchases, accounting for 11% of foreign demand. However, they retained the lead in total transaction value at $7.6 billion. The average price of a property purchased by Chinese buyers was approximately $1 million.
The top five groups of foreign buyers also included citizens of India, with a 9% share and $3.7 billion in transactions, as well as the United Kingdom—4% and $1.2 billion, respectively.
Florida retained its status as the most popular destination for foreign buyers, accounting for 20% of all transactions. California accounted for 19%, Texas for 12%, and New Jersey and Georgia for 4% each. Foreign buyers continued to focus on the higher-end segment of the market. The median price of the homes they purchased was $465,000, compared to $413,600 for all existing-home transactions in the U.S. About 15% of foreign buyers purchased properties valued at over $1 million. Nearly half of the transactions—48%—were paid for entirely in cash, while among all U.S. homebuyers, this figure stood at 28%. Foreign buyers purchased about half of the properties for vacation use, rental income, or a combination of these purposes.
According to NAR statistics, foreign buyers include both non-residents who permanently reside outside the U.S. and recent immigrants and holders of non-immigrant visas who have been living in the country for more than six months. Non-residents purchased 29,500 properties worth $23.5 billion, while foreign nationals residing in the U.S. purchased 37,600 properties worth $21.8 billion.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) brings together professionals in the residential and commercial real estate markets. The study of international transactions is based on a survey of association members and has been published annually since 2009.
Net migration to Germany fell to 235,000 people in 2025, compared with 663,000 in 2023, according to a study by the German Economic Institute (IW) published on July 28, 2026. Excluding the pandemic period, this is the lowest figure since 2010. Experts at the Experts Club Information and Analytical Center attribute the decline to several factors: a decrease in the number of refugees, the departure of workers from Central and Eastern European countries, a decline in migration from the Western Balkans, and an increase in emigration by German citizens themselves.
The largest net inflow from a single country in 2025 came from Ukrainian citizens, amounting to 89,000 people. A year earlier, the figure was 116,000. Ukrainians have a special status because they are admitted to Germany mainly under the EU’s temporary protection mechanism rather than through the standard asylum procedure. Further developments will depend primarily on the course of the war and the conditions of Ukrainians’ stay in Germany.
By the end of 2025, approximately 1.41 million Ukrainian citizens were listed in Germany’s Central Register of Foreigners. They became the second-largest foreign group after Turkish citizens.
The number of initial asylum applications fell from 329,000 in 2023 to 113,000 in 2025.
The inflow from Syria declined particularly sharply: the number of initial applications fell from 103,000 to 23,000. Over the same period, the number of applicants from Afghanistan decreased from 51,000 to 24,000, while the number from Turkey fell from 61,000 to 12,000.
At the end of 2025, the largest groups of people registered in Germany as being in need of protection remained citizens of Ukraine, at approximately 1.164 million; Syria, at 669,000; and Afghanistan, at 321,000.
IW links the decline in Syrian migration primarily to the change in the situation in Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2024, as well as to the tightening of German and EU migration policies.
Another important change was the reversal of migration from the new EU member states.
In 2023, Germany recorded a net inflow of approximately 42,000 citizens from these countries. In 2024, 35,000 more people left Germany than arrived, while in 2025 the net outflow reached 45,000 people.
This group includes, in particular, citizens of Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Croatia, and other countries that joined the EU from 2004 onward. Economists explain migrants’ return by the narrowing gap in wages and living standards, growing demand for workers in their own countries, and the overall ageing of the population of Central and Eastern Europe.
At the end of 2025, approximately 904,000 Romanian citizens and 840,000 Polish citizens were registered in Germany. Over the year, the number of Polish citizens declined by approximately 25,000, while the total number of EU citizens fell by 75,000.
In recent years, citizens of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia have been actively recruited into the German labour market, including under special rules for the Western Balkans. However, their net migration has been steadily declining since 2022. In 2025, it amounted to approximately 39,000 people. IW warns that the potential for further recruitment of workers from the Balkans is also limited: the populations of most countries in the region are shrinking, while their own labour markets are facing staff shortages.
Against the backdrop of the overall decline, there are also opposing trends. Net migration of Vietnamese citizens increased from 10,000 people in 2023 to 19,000 in 2025.
At the same time, the number of residence permits issued to citizens of non-European countries for employment purposes increased by 33,000, or 13.6%, between 2023 and 2025. The number of permits related to education also rose by 33,000, or 15.3%. Thus, the inflow of students and skilled workers is currently declining significantly more slowly than humanitarian and intra-European migration.
The net outflow of German citizens increased from 74,000 people in 2023 to 97,000 in 2025. IW notes that negative migration among German citizens occurs regularly. However, growth of approximately 30% over two years may be an alarming signal, especially if qualified specialists are leaving the country.
At the same time, part of the statistics may relate to previously naturalised migrants who return to their countries of origin after obtaining German citizenship. It is difficult to assess the structure of this outflow precisely because the final destination country is not recorded for many of those leaving.
According to the Central Register of Foreigners, approximately 14.07 million foreign nationals were living in Germany at the end of 2025.
The largest groups were:
Approximately 5 million foreigners, or 35%, were citizens of EU member states. Another 4.6 million held the citizenship of other European countries, while approximately 4.5 million represented countries in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and other regions.
If not only foreign citizens but also migrants who obtained German citizenship and their direct descendants are taken into account, Germany had approximately 21.8 million people with an immigration history in 2025, representing 26.3% of the population. The largest groups by country of birth were people from Poland and Turkey, at approximately 1.5 million each; Ukraine, at 1.3 million; and Russia and Syria, at approximately 1 million each.
The decline in migration is occurring simultaneously with the mass retirement of the baby-boomer generation. According to a separate IW forecast, by 2036 the gap between older workers leaving the labour market and young people reaching working age could reach 4.3 million people. Economists consider a return to a mass inflow of workers from Eastern Europe unlikely. Germany will have to recruit specialists and workers with medium and lower levels of formal qualifications more actively from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and other regions.
IW proposes accelerating visa procedures, reducing the tax and social burden on workers, and extending simplified labour migration mechanisms similar to the existing rules for the Western Balkans to new countries. Thus, this is not about the complete cessation of migration but about a change in its structure. Germany is receiving fewer refugees and workers from neighbouring European countries, while the economy’s need for foreign labour continues to grow because of the ageing population.
Schneider Electric, a global leader in energy technology, and AMD today announced a jointly developed and validated reference design for the AMD Helios rack solution, which offers a scalable architecture for faster deployment of high-density AI environments with fewer risks and less complexity. This reference design marks the first outcome of the collaboration between Schneider Electric and AMD and underscores the companies’ shared commitment to simplifying the deployment of AI Factories.
The new reference design is the first of its kind, developed to support high-density AI workloads on the Helios rack-mounted solution. The platform is powered by AMD Instinct™ MI455X GPUs, 6th-generation AMD EPYC™ processors, AMD Pensando™ Vulcano NICs, and the open ROCm™ software ecosystem. AMD Helios is designed to deliver breakthrough AI performance through advanced computing capabilities, high interconnect bandwidth, increased memory capacity, and system-level integration. This enables customers to run larger and more complex AI workloads faster, while optimizing power consumption and efficiency.
Since AI workloads place unprecedented demands on data center infrastructure, reference designs provide data center architects and operators with tested and scalable solutions capable of handling new levels of power density, cooling requirements, and operational complexity. By simulating the operation of physical data center infrastructure, these pre-validated architectural solutions shorten the design phase by determining the optimal configuration of power, cooling, and IT infrastructure to create a reliable, scalable, and AI-ready data center. The AMD Helios reference design covers four technical areas: facility power, facility cooling, IT space, and lifecycle management software.
“Today, organizations need comprehensive, AI-ready reference designs that enable them to move more quickly from the planning stage to deployment with fewer risks,” said Manish Kumar, Executive Vice President of Schneider Electric’s Secure Power & Data Centers division. “In collaboration with AMD, we have created an engineering-validated reference design that combines cutting-edge AI computing platforms, power technologies, and practical data center solutions, helping customers deploy scalable, high-density AI environments with greater confidence, efficiency, and speed.”
“AI infrastructure is rapidly evolving into full-fledged AI Factories, which requires that computing, networking, power, and cooling be designed as a single system from the very beginning,” said Forrest Norrod, executive vice president and general manager of AMD’s Data Center Solutions business group. “AMD Helios is an open rack-based architecture designed to deliver the performance, efficiency, and flexibility required for next-generation AI workloads. Together with Schneider Electric, we’ve developed a validated reference design that provides customers with a practical foundation to accelerate the deployment of high-density AI infrastructure, reduce integration risks, and scale more confidently and efficiently.”
Reference Design Accelerates AMD Helios Deployment
This new collaboration combines AMD’s AI platform innovations with Schneider Electric’s expertise in power, cooling, and digital infrastructure, creating a more integrated approach to deploying both new AI Factories and high-density retrofit infrastructures. The reference design supports:
The reference design has already been validated in accordance with ANSI standards for deployment in the United States. Future plans include expanding this architecture to support IEC standards for projects worldwide.
About Schneider Electric
Schneider Electric is a global leader in energy technologies that improves efficiency and promotes sustainable development through the electrification, automation, and digitalization of industry, business, and residential spaces. The company’s technologies enable buildings, data centers, factories, infrastructure, and power grids to function as open, interconnected ecosystems, enhancing productivity, resilience, and environmental sustainability.
The company’s portfolio includes smart devices, software-defined architectures, artificial intelligence-based systems, digital services, and professional consulting services. With 160,000 employees and 1 million partners in over 100 countries, Schneider Electric consistently ranks among the world’s most sustainable companies. Learn more at https://www.se.com/ua/uk/
