More than 74 thousand new businesses were opened by Ukrainians in the first quarter of 2024, according to the Unified State Register. This is 33.6% more than in the first quarter of last year. Most businesses are opened in Kyiv and Dnipro regions. Entrepreneurs are leading the way in trade, personal services, and IT.
A record 74,050 new businesses were opened by Ukrainians in the first quarter of 2024. This is a third more than last year and 18% more than before the full-scale invasion in 2021.
The capital has remained the undisputed leader in the number of new cases in recent years. In the first quarter of this year, 10,252 new businesses were registered in Kyiv, accounting for 13.8% of the total. Dnipropetrovs’k region is in second place with 6.8 thousand newly established businesses. Kyiv region is in the bottom three: 5.7 thousand new sole proprietorships.
A quarter of newly registered sole proprietorships are engaged in retail trade, which is the most popular area, unchanged over the past 4 years. Personal services and computer programming are also among the most popular business areas among Ukrainian entrepreneurs.
https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/foponomics-2024-1
individual entrepreneur, NEW BUSINESS, Unified State Register
For the first time in history, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has created a digital personality using artificial intelligence technologies to officially comment on consular information for the media, the ministry’s press service reports.
“The Foreign Ministry’s representative for consular affairs, Victoria Shi, is based on a real person – Ukrainian singer and influencer Rosalie Nombre, who agreed to participate in the MFA project pro bono and act as a prototype for the representative. The project team filmed and digitized her. It is important to note that the consular representative and her real prototype are two different people, and only the digital person Victoria Shi makes official comments on behalf of the MFA’s consular service,” the statement said.
AI has already posted a congratulatory video message on the YouTube channel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
“My name symbolizes our main goal – the victory of Ukraine, and my surname is the artificial intelligence that created me. My job will be to provide the public with up-to-date and verified information from the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. I will inform journalists about the work of consuls to protect the rights and interests of Ukrainian citizens abroad, respond to incidents or emergencies, and other news,” the statement reads.
Victoria Shi’s comments will be published on the official resources of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, its website and social media pages, and will be transmitted to journalists by the MFA’s press service.
“Using an AI-generated digital persona for consular commentary is primarily about saving time and resources for the MFA. Real diplomats will be able to be more effective and focus on other tasks to help citizens,” said Dmytro Kuleba, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
The minister also emphasized that the active use of artificial intelligence technologies in the work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not a whim, but a requirement of wartime. After all, in order to achieve the results necessary for the country, it is necessary to speed up all processes and be one step ahead.
“The creation of a digital consular representative is part of a broader strategy for the systematic implementation of advanced technologies using artificial intelligence in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Diplomacy, not only in Ukraine but also around the world, has always been a conservative sphere that was the last to innovate. We are changing this. Ukrainian diplomacy is now strengthening its capabilities and making a technological leap that no other diplomatic service in the world has ever made,” the minister added.
It is noted that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also provided several levels of protection for Victoria Shi from digital fakes. Each original video of the consular representative has a QR code that leads to the text version of the same commentary on the official website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In case of absence of such a QR code or transition to any other website, the video is not considered authentic.
In addition, a consular representative is not a substitute for a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. After the expiration of the term of office of Oleg Nikolenko, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already held a competition to fill this vacancy. The winner has already been selected and is undergoing the necessary special checks.
The AI consular representative of the MFA of Ukraine project was implemented by the team of The Game Changers NGO with the assistance of Nazovni Tech.
The Ukrainian national ice hockey team played its third match at the World Championship in Division 1B. The opponent was China, and the match ended with a score of 9:0.
China, which came to the tournament without legionnaires and players from the KHL club Kunlun, was again unable to resist the Ukrainian national team. The Ukrainians scored nine goals in the pre-World Cup sparring session.
Today, Ukraine will play an early match again, with Spain as the opponent.
The share of transactions for the purchase of housing on the terms of installments in March 2024 reached 95%, while a year ago the figure was 85%, and in the pre-war period – 70%, follows from the data of the group of companies DIM.
According to DIM, while the share of installments is growing, the rate of full payments on home purchases has fallen to 5%. At the same time last year, full payments accounted for 15% of transactions, and in the pre-war period – 30%.
“The greatest demand among customers are programs of interest-free installments, long-term installments from the builder from 3 to 5 years, installments for the first installment – payment of the first installment within 3 months, the program ‘eOsela’ for ready and under construction apartments, fixing monthly payments for the first year of installments, ‘vacations’ for installments, for example, in the winter months, and other promotions,” – said the marketing director of the group DIM Daria Bedya at the discussion panel DIM Talks.
According to her, as of March 2024, half of the structure of transactions was concluded with the first installment of 20-30% of the cost of the apartment, while a year ago they were only 35%, and in March 2021 – only 15% of the total number of contracts.
Another 20% of transactions today are concluded with a down payment of 10-20%, and only 10% of transactions – with 31-50%, while in the pre-war period this option was more popular (35% of transactions).
According to Bedia, when buying a one-bedroom apartment in 2024, clients more often choose housing with an area of 40-45 square meters, which is in line with the indicators of previous periods. At the same time, apartments with the area of 45-55 square meters have lost popularity after the start of full-scale invasion: transactions for their purchase today account for 5% of the total number against 20% in 2021.
According to DIM, 90% of transactions for the purchase of two-bedroom apartments concern housing with an area of 55-68 square meters, and objects of 70-82 square meters occupy only 10% of transactions, while before the full-scale invasion they occupied 40% in the structure of sales of two-bedroom apartments.
As for three-room apartments, 70% of their sales fall on the most compact variants – 80-85 square meters. m. According to DIM statistics, this trend has only intensified over the last three years.
As reported, in the first quarter of 2024, DIM Group commissioned two objects for 1,060 apartments.
DIM Group was founded in 2014 and consists of six companies covering all stages of construction. To date, it has commissioned 12 houses in six residential complexes with a total residential area of more than 218 thousand sq. m. At the stage of construction – six residential complexes of the category “comfort +” and “business class”: “New Autograph”, “Metropolis”, Park Lake City, Lucky Land, A136 Highlight Tower, Olegiv Podil.
The State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” is completing spring planting, during which it has already planted more than 113 million seedlings, which is 102% of the plan, said the company’s CEO Yuriy Bolokhovets.
“We are continuing large-scale planting in the South, where no new forests have been created for many years. The areas for reforestation in Mykolaiv region have been agreed with ecologists so as not to harm the steppe ecosystem. Among other regions, the leaders in planting were the Kyiv Forestry Office and the Polissia Forestry Office,” he wrote on Facebook.
According to Bolokhovets, in 2024, foresters are not only reforesting, but also increasing the area of new forests, in particular, reforesting areas transferred to the state enterprise by local communities as part of the Forest Recovery project.
“In total, more than 2.1 thousand hectares of new forests have been created this spring, which is more than all forestry enterprises did in the entire year of 2022,” he added.
In addition, Forests of Ukraine is increasing the production and planting of seedlings with a closed-root system (CRS), which demonstrate better survival, savings on care and allow planting larger areas with fewer resources. Prior to the reform, 1-2 million seedlings were planted with the SSS, while this year’s plan is to plant 20 million, Bolokhovets said.
“In general, the creation of high-quality planting material is turning into a promising business area for the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine”. According to the latest news, we are preparing about 107,500 seedlings for sale to Estonia. Our network of seed-breeding centers is expanding and increasing its capacity,” summarized the CEO of the Forests of Ukraine.
As reported, the forestry reform was launched in Ukraine in 2016. As part of it, the sale of raw wood at electronic auctions has already been introduced. Since 2021, an interactive map of wood processing facilities has been operating in a test mode in a number of regions.
The industry has implemented the Forest in a Smartphone project, which contains a list of logging tickets for timber harvesting and allows you to check the legality of logging on the agency’s online map.
On June 1, 2023, Ukraine launched a pilot for the electronic issuance of logging tickets and certificates of origin of timber. In addition, the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” has launched a pilot project to procure timber harvesting services through the electronic platform Prozorro.
In 2023, mobile operator Vodafone Ukraine resumed paying dividends, having not paid them in 2022, according to its annual report posted on the company’s website on Tuesday.
“In 2023, the company declared dividends to shareholders totaling UAH 1.828 billion, or UAH 2.33 per share,” the report says.
It is stated that as of December 31, 2023, all declared dividends have been paid. In particular, Telco Solutions and Investments LLC received a dividend of UAH 1.810 billion on August 9, and PPT Telecom Kyiv received a dividend of UAH 18.28 million on October 26.
As noted, Vodafone Ukraine did not pay dividends to shareholders in 2022.
Earlier it was reported that in 2023, Vodafone Ukraine increased its revenue in hryvnia by 9% to UAH 21.6 billion, while reducing it in dollars by 4% to $591 million. At the same time, net profit increased 4.6 times to UAH 5.07 billion and 4.1 times to $139 million, respectively.
