Ukraine’s state budget has received $235 million in concessional financing from the Government of Japan under the World Bank’s new systemic projects, the Resilient, Inclusive and Environmentally Balanced Enterprise (RISE) and the Increasing Access to and Resilience of Education in Crisis-affected Ukraine (LEARN).
As the Ministry of Finance reported in a press release on Wednesday, the RISE program received a $130 million loan that will be used to address critical issues that hinder the growth and sustainable development of the private sector.
The Ministry clarified that the $105 million in Japanese funds received under the LEARN project is the result of the Ukrainian government’s implementation of measures to ensure safe face-to-face learning in schools by providing subventions for shelters and school buses in 2024.
The projects are implemented using the Program-for-results (PforR) financial instrument, when funds are allocated after Ukraine has achieved some of the results.
The Ministry of Finance noted that by the end of 2024, Ukraine expects to raise another $120 million and $95 million under RISE and LEARN, respectively.
The development company Alterra Group, which is currently implementing the Formatsiya.Lviv industrial park project, intends to build a network of seven such parks, said Olena Podolska, head of the company’s international business unit.
“Lviv will be our first park, then we will go to Rivne, two will be in Kyiv, and then we will return to the western region – Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsia, and Khmelnytsky,” she said during the Ukrainian Automotive and Mobility Forum 2024 in Lviv, organized by the Ukrainian Automotive and Mobility Cluster with the support of the USAID Competitive Economy of Ukraine Program.
Podolska noted that there are already several local manufacturers who plan to open 10,000 square meters of production facilities in the Formation.Lviv IP, including the USP sandwich panel manufacturer.
In addition, during the forum, the CEO and owner of Lois Motors LLC, which is implementing a project to create a light electric vehicle LUAZ and plans to scale it up, announced his interest in locating his production in the park.
“I plan to scale up the project and cooperate with the Formatsiya.Lviv industrial park to open either a car production facility for people with disabilities or the next stage of our production,” he said during the forum.
Alterra Group is building 150 square meters of production, warehouse and office space on 30 hectares of land in Formatsiya.Lviv (formerly Formatsiya.Syhnivka). It will include a prototyping laboratory, R&D center, business incubator, event space, offices, and showrooms.
According to the project presentation, the first phase of the park is scheduled to be commissioned in the first quarter of 2025.
Alterra Group LLC is a Ukrainian company specializing in the development and management of turnkey commercial real estate.
The company manages 35 facilities with a total area of 175 thousand square meters. These include warehouse and production complexes, business centers, shopping and entertainment centers.
The company’s completed commercial real estate projects in Ukraine include the PORT logistics center, PROSTIR business hub (both in Lviv), Palo Alto business center (Kyiv), and Joule and JAM warehouse complexes in Kyiv region.
Exports of IT services in 2024 will decline by 4-6% compared to 2023 and may amount to $6.3-6.4 billion, Lviv IT Cluster predicts.
“The decline in IT services exports that began in 2023 continues. Under the optimistic scenario, by the end of 2024, it will decrease by 4% compared to 2023. Under the pessimistic scenario, this figure will reach 6%. We should expect $6.3-6.4 billion. Thus, in 2024, the tech industry will not show growth for the second year in a row compared to last year,” follows a study by IT Research Ukraine conducted by the Lviv IT Cluster.
At the same time, despite the challenges of a full-scale war, the technology industry in Ukraine remains one of the key industries and provides significant foreign exchange earnings. The IT sector is the largest exporter of services in Ukraine, accounting for 38% of total exports of services. In total exports, IT ranks second after food exports, the study says.
According to the data, 2118 IT companies operate in Ukraine. Half of them are service companies, including 47% outsourcing and 3% outstaffing. Another 31% of companies are product companies. The rest have a mixed business model.
45.7% of the IT companies surveyed said they do not plan to open new representative offices in the short term, 17.1% plan to open in Ukraine, and 34.3% abroad. Most want to open a representative office in Poland. In addition, 6% of CEOs plan to close their office in Ukraine.
The number of specialists working in the IT industry in 2024 decreased by 1.6% to 302 thousand. Most of them, 238 thousand people, live and work in Ukraine. The number of Ukrainian specialists abroad also decreased to 62-64 thousand people against 65 thousand in 2023, the study says. The average age of a Ukrainian IT specialist is 31.5 years. The majority of respondents, 68%, do not have children.
The median income of IT professionals in Ukraine, according to IT Research Ukraine 2024, decreased by 1.7% compared to 2023 and amounts to $2590. At the same time, the majority of respondents reported that their expenses for rent, food, and other basic needs have increased.
Most 97% of IT companies donate and implement projects that bring Ukraine closer to victory. 67.6% of surveyed companies have mobilized specialists on their staff. IT companies support their employees serving in the Ukrainian Defense Forces by providing them with job security, fixed salaries, or partial compensation.
The shareholders of Credit Agricole Bank Ukraine decided to keep all profits generated in Ukraine inside the country, thus increasing the Tier 1 capital, said Vitaliy Kucher, Member of the Management Board and CFO of the bank.
“We have made a political decision, and all the income that the bank earns in Ukraine remains in Ukraine. That is, we do not postpone the distribution of dividends, we distribute them, we increase the Tier 1 capital,” he said at the Association of Ukrainian Banks conference ‘Financial Sector of Ukraine 2024: Results, Challenges, Forecasts’ in Kyiv on Wednesday.
“That is, the money stays here forever to support the economy, to build a sufficient buffer for the development of lending,” Kucher added.
According to him, in case of building an acceptable investment climate and predictable environment, conducting the right regulatory and state policy, “money will flow here (to Ukraine – IF-U).”
The CFO also noted that the group’s central management is actively involved in the subsidiary’s operations, in particular, unlike a number of other foreign banks, he personally visits Ukraine during a full-scale war.
Credit Agricole Bank (formerly Index Bank) was founded in 1993. Its sole shareholder is Credit Agricole S.A. (France). According to the National Bank of Ukraine, as of October 1, Credit Agricole Bank ranked 10th in terms of total assets (UAH 121.08 billion) among 62 banks operating in the country. The net profit of the financial institution for the first nine months of 2024 amounted to UAH 5.12 billion, and its equity as of October 1 amounted to UAH 14.15 billion.
In January-September 2024, IMC Agro Holding increased its revenue to $140.8 million, up 43% year-on-year, according to the company’s report.
According to the report, the most significant part of the company’s revenue comes from corn sales, accounting for 47.4% in the first nine months of 2024 and 83.6% in the first nine months of 2023.
In addition, in January-September 2024, the agroholding increased its revenue from sunflower sales almost fivefold to $23.4 mln. Revenue from wheat sales increased to $49.7 mln, or five times.
The increase in normalized EBITDA in January-September 2024, as well as the increase in net profit, is due to the increase in sales volumes and higher grain prices at the end of the reporting date, IMC explained.
As reported, in the season-2024, IMC grew spring crops on 90 thou hectares, of which 65.8 thou hectares were allocated for corn and 24.2 thou hectares for sunflower. The agricultural holding completed sunflower harvesting in the last days of September. The company produced 77.7 thousand tons of gross harvest with a yield 60% higher than the national average of 3.2 tons/ha.
IMC Agro Holding is an integrated group of companies operating in Sumy, Poltava and Chernihiv regions (north and center of Ukraine) in the crop production, elevators and warehouses segments. The Group’s land bank is about 120 thousand hectares and storage capacity is 554 thousand tons, with a 2023 harvest of 1.002 million tons.
In 2023, IMC posted a net loss of $21.03 million compared to $1.12 million a year earlier, and its EBITDA decreased 11.3 times to $3.22 million. Revenue increased by 22.3% to $139.45 million, while the share of exports decreased to 68% from 73% a year earlier.
US President-elect Donald Trump has announced the appointment of General Keith Kellogg as Special Representative for Ukraine and Russia.
“I am very pleased to nominate General Keith Kellogg as Assistant to the President and Special Representative for Ukraine and Russia. Keith has had a distinguished military and business career, including serving in very important national security positions in my first administration,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial.
Previously, Kellogg served as National Security Advisor to Vice President Mike Pence, as well as Executive Secretary and Chief of Staff of the National Security Council in the first Trump administration. He served as National Security Advisor after Michael Flynn resigned.
According to The Wall Street Journal on November 6, Kellogg’s plan to end the war in Ukraine includes Ukraine’s refusal to join NATO for 20 years, freezing the front line and creating a demilitarized zone. It also provides for the transfer of the occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia.
Republican Mike Walz, Donald Trump’s future national security adviser, congratulated Keith Kellogg on his appointment as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, confirming that Kellogg will seek a peace agreement.
“Keith has dedicated his life to protecting our great country and is committed to a peaceful resolution of the war in Ukraine,” he wrote on social media platform X.
In July 2024, in an interview with Voice of America, Keith Kellogg confirmed that Donald Trump had been given proposals to end the war in Ukraine, “an option that the president could use if elected.” In particular, according to him, such a plan involves encouraging Ukraine and Russia to start peace talks as soon as possible. It was said that the United States would continue to arm Ukraine to deter Russia from aggression during or after an agreement is reached. However, this will be done if Kyiv agrees to start negotiations.
According to the plan, to encourage Russia to negotiate, the United States and other NATO partners could postpone Ukraine’s membership in the alliance for an extended period in exchange for a “comprehensive, verifiable peace agreement with security guarantees.”
It is noted that in this version of a peaceful settlement, Ukraine may try to return its territories, but over a long period of time. It may be possible to complete this process only after Putin’s death, and through diplomatic means. It is also proposed to partially lift sanctions against Russia to encourage Moscow to take certain steps towards peace, and to establish a tax on imports of Russian energy resources for the restoration of Ukraine.
