The volume of construction work performed in Ukraine in 2018 increased by 4.4% compared with 2017, while growth in 2017 compared with 2016 was 26.3%, according to reviewed statistics. According to the agency, the volume of construction work performed in December 2018 decreased by 8.8% compared with December 2017, while compared with November it grew by 36.7% (according to seasonally adjusted data it declined by 3.2%).
According to the report, in 2018 compared with 2017 the volume of construction work decreased only in residential construction – by 1.6% (a rise of 16.3% in 2017 on 2016).
Nonresidential construction in 2018 rose by 1.2% (26.1% in 2017) and in engineering – by 9% (31.7% in 2017).
In 2018 compared with 2017, an increase in the volume of construction work was recorded in 14 regions of Ukraine, while in Kyiv there was a drop of 3.5%, to UAH 30.1 billion.
According to the State Statistics Service, the largest increase in this indicator was seen in Vinnytsia (by 42.6%, to UAH 5.5 billion), Donetsk (by 32.6%, to UAH 5.3 billion) and Cherkasy (by 18.2%, to UAH 1.9 billion) regions.
The decline in construction work in 2018 by 2017 was recorded in Kirovohrad (by 16.7%, to UAH 1.6 billion), Luhansk (by 16.3%, to UAH 0.6 billion) and Mykolaiv (by 14.3%, to UAH 2.8 billion) regions.
Ukraine can join India, Israel, and Thailand and become another major platform for the rapidly growing industry of clinical trials of new drugs, James Peyer, managing partner of the U.S. biotechnology company Apollo Ventures, has said. “Clinical trials can be carried out (in Ukraine) with the same level of professionalism, with the same level of effectiveness as in the United States and Europe but without their high costs,” he said at the Ukraine House Davos health panel.
As reported earlier, bill No. 4074 on ensuring public access to the results of preclinical study and clinical trials of medicines was passed into law by the Ukrainian parliament in September 2018.
At present, about 200 clinical drug trials are underway in Ukraine. At the same time, in the past two years, the trend toward a decrease in the number of clinical trials has subsided.
Top managers of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) at a meeting of the National Investment Council of Ukraine in Davos (Switzerland) has confirmed their readiness to consider investment in the capital of state-owned Ukrgasbank, Head of the Office of the National Investment Council Yuliya Kovaliv has said.
As reported, in November 2017, Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance agreed on cooperation with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in the process of privatization of Ukrgasbank. The memorandum of cooperation also envisaged a possibility of entering the capital of the bank by IFC to support its sale. The investment will depend on several factors, including the outcome of the due diligence of the bank.
Ukrgasbank was established in 1993 and as of January 1, 2017 the state represented by the Ministry of Finance owned 94.9% of its shares. Since 2015, the bank has been included in the list of state-owned facilities of strategic importance for the economy and national security.
The Government of Ukraine and the Swiss Federal Council have signed a protocol amending the bilateral convention on the avoidance of double taxation.
“The signing of this protocol creates favorable conditions for investors in Ukraine and Switzerland, stimulates business initiative of entrepreneurs, regulates issues of international taxation of income between states and eliminates tax discrimination,” President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, who attended the signing ceremony in Davos, wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday.
Poroshenko met with Swiss President Ueli Maurer and agreed to continue interaction between the competent authorities in the matter of returning assets illegally withdrawn from Ukraine by former officials, Ukraine’s presidential press-service reported.
During the meeting, Poroshenko invited his Swiss counterpart to visit Ukraine.
Ukrainian Finance Minister Oksana Markarova and Maurer signed the protocol.
According to a posting on the website of the Finance Ministry of Ukraine, the signing of the protocol is aimed at avoiding double taxation of individual and companies’ income earned on the territories of the two countries.
“This will be achieved both by dividing the right to tax certain types of income between countries depending on their place of origin, and by taking into account the amounts of taxes paid in one country in tax liabilities of a taxpayer in one country,” the Finance Ministry said.
According to the ministry, the signed protocol provides for an increase in the tax rates of interest and royalties from nil to 5%, improving the procedure for resolving tax disputes through arbitration, and expanding the parties’ ability to exchange tax information without mentioning the requirements of national tax interest or bank secrecy.
In addition, the document establishes rules of applying the right to receive benefits – they will not be provided regarding the type of income or property, if one of the main goals of any agreement or an agreement between economic entities was to directly or indirectly receive such a benefit.
“These rates and regulations suit the general practice of concluding such international treaties on the avoidance of double taxation and protocols thereto with other countries by Ukraine,” the Finance Ministry said.
After signing the protocol, the countries are to implement the internal procedures required for the ratification of the agreement, the ministry said.
The town of Solone in Dnipropetrovsk region has been determined as the site for the construction of a new airport, Tetiana Rychkova, the MP from the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko faction, has told Interfax-Ukraine.
The parliamentarian said that the decision was made on January 25 at an expanded meeting at the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine with the participation of Chairman of Dnipropetrovsk Regional Council Hlib Pryhunov, Deputy Head of Dnipropetrovsk Regional Administration Volodymyr Yurchenko, Head of the State Aviation Service Oleksandr Bilchuk, Head of the State Agency for Infrastructure Projects Mykola Bozhko, Tetiana Rychkova, as well as representatives of UkSATSE and industry experts. According to the people’s deputy, the majority of experts who took part in the discussion supported this decision
“The construction of an airport in Solone will make it possible to create a complex technological facility in accordance with the modern international standards and equip it accordingly. The decision was made taking into account many factors,” Rychkova noted.
In 2018, Ukrainian coking plants increased the production of blast furnace coke with 6% moisture content by 4.1% compared to 2017—up to 10.826 million tonnes.
In December 2018, a total of 924,000 tonnes of coke was produced while in November the coke production stood at 917,000 tonnes, the Dnipro-based Ukrkoks association of coking plants told the Kyiv-based Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
Ukrkoks Director General Anatoliy Starovoit said coke chemical plants worked as normal, providing metallurgical enterprises with coke according to the existing production plans.
“In January, the production has decreased to some extent compared to December because of a smaller number of orders and due to some technical reasons. However, the manufacturing enterprises have been supplied with blast furnace coke in full, there are no problems,” he said.
When asked about the plans for the entire 2019, Starovoit said that there are two forecasting options for producing coke in the association: at the level of 2018 and with a 5% increase.
“We have not yet received plans from iron smelters, so we have planned two scenarios for the production of coke. In January, the contracting process is taking place; therefore, later there will be a clearer picture of our production plans,” the director general said.
As reported earlier, in 2017, 14,289 tonnes of enriched coke coal was supplied to coke-chemical enterprises, of which 3.458 million tonnes accounted for Ukrainian production and 10.831 million tonnes were imported. The ratio of imported and Ukrainian coal was 78.8% to 24.2%. In particular, the imports arrived from the Russian Federation—6.3 million tonnes, the United States and Canada—3.923 million tonnes, Kazakhstan—377,000 tonnes, and the Czech Republic—187,000 tonnes.
