Ukraine’s Economic Development and Trade Ministry attracted $953.2 million of international technical assistance, which is 50% more than in 2017.
“These funds will be spent on the implementation of 264 new projects that are included in the medium-term Government Action Plan,” the ministry’s press service reported on its Facebook page on Thursday evening.
The press service also said that the ministry was able to attract $675 million from organizations of the UN system for the period 2018-2022.
“These funds will be used to implement projects in the areas of sustainable economic development, environment and employment, to ensure equal access to quality and inclusive services and social protection, and other things,” the ministry said.
In addition, for the years 2019-2024, the European Union has provided financial assistance to Ukraine in the amount of EUR 272.5 million. Of these, EUR 104 million will be sent to support energy efficiency, EUR 55,500 – to support public financial management for Ukraine, EUR 37 million – to increase the capacity of public authorities of Ukraine to implement the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement and the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) Agreement, EUR 58 million – to increase the effectiveness of reforms in the field of vocational education in Ukraine.
The U.S. government has provided Ukraine with $78 million in additional technical assistance.
“The countries and organizations that provide the most assistance to Ukraine are: the EU, the United States, Germany, Norway, UNOPS [United Nations Office for Project Services], the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), UN and others,” the Economic Development and Trade Ministry said.
Ukrenergo on February 4 will disclose tender proposals submitted for the tender to purchase hardware for the balancing electricity market, which is launched from July 2019.
According to the company’s website, the launch of a new model of the wholesale electricity market with a division into a number of segments (a balancing market, a day-ahead market, an intra-day market) is scheduled for the second half of 2019 in accordance with the law on the electricity market.
At the end of December 2018, Ukrenergo held a pre-tender meeting with potential participants. Currently, eight companies have acquired tender documentation, in particular, from Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Israel, and Switzerland.
Ukrenergo noted that the implementation of the project to introduce the balancing market is divided into two parts: the purchase of software and the purchase of hardware (Lot 3 “Telecommunications Infrastructure”) as part of the package UE/5 “Implementation of the Balancing Market”).
“Such a division is made in order to purchase software for the entire market platform without being tied to a limited range of hardware vendors. This allows one to purchase hardware at reasonable and competitive prices to deploy the entire market platform software according to its technical specifications,” the company said.
Sale of energy on the Ukrainian Energy Exchange in 2018 grew by 36%, to UAH 15 billion.
According to a posting on the website of the exchange, a total of 34 million tonnes of various types of energy (coal, fuel, liquefied gas, crude oil, methanol and other resources) and 160 million cubic meters of natural gas were sold.
The number of deals grew by 32% in 2018, from 7,500 to 9,900.
“Last year, the Ukrainian Energy Exchange significantly expanded the circle of participants in the BETS electronic trading system, of which there are now 654,” the exchange said.
The exchange also recalled that in September 2018, it launched an information trading platform for entering into transactions on the OTC market (daily gas balancing). It sold 4.4 million cubic meters of gas.
At the beginning of December 2018, the exchange posted the first lots for the sale of licenses for the use of subsoil issued by the State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources of Ukraine. Bids for participation in these auctions are already being accepted.
Passenger flow at the Kharkiv international airport in 2018 totaled 962,500 people, which is 19% more than in 2017.
The press service of the airport reported that its cargo terminal handled 209 tonnes of cargo in 2018.
In 2018, regular flights to London, Vienna, Dortmund, Katowice, Gdansk and Wroclaw were launched by Wizz Air from the Kharkiv airport. And also new seasonal flights to Tbilisi and Batumi from Myway Airlines were launched; to Milan from UIA; and to Barcelona, Rimini and Burgas from the new Ukrainian company SkyUp.
In 2019, the airport plans to open new international and domestic flights. It is already known about the launch of flights to Krakow from Wizz Air, Rome and Milan from Ernest Airlines and Odesa from SkyUp. Tickets for these destinations are already available.
In 2017, the airport increased passenger traffic to 806,100 people (in 2016 this figure was 599,700 people). In 2018, it is planned to increase it by another 12% (up to 900,000 people).
Kharkiv Airport has a runway with a length of 2,500 meters and a width of 50 meters. It has two passenger terminals with a capacity of 100 and 650 people per hour.
DCH manages the airport through New Systems AM.
Depot Development Group from the Foxtrot Group (Kyiv), developing the Depo’t shopping centers chain in Ukraine, plans to expand the portfolio of retail property in Ukrainian regions via acquisition of finished facilities and building new ones, Foxtrot Group Head Valeriy Makovetsky has said.
“We have several construction projects and a number of projects for expanding/restyling existing facilities,” Makovetsky said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
At the same time, he said that the group does not plan to build a shopping center in Kyiv, since this is a specific market “with a long and not very high return on invested capital.”
“We have another strategy: construction of commercial real estate in the regions of Ukraine. We are trying to acquire completed and, from our point of view, liquid, small facilities. Next year [2019] we have planned the construction of a good facility in the center of Chernihiv. We are currently developing a restyling project of our facility in Kryvy Rih. We are attaching a sports complex with a swimming pool for the Sportlife network. We are planning to reformat the shopping center in Zaporizhia, to expand our shopping center in the center of Kropyvnytsky. Maybe, we will take part as partners in one of the Kharkiv facilities,” Makovetsky said, describing the plans.
According to him, these will be small regional-scale shopping centers, the total area of each of them will be about 10,000-15,000 square meters.
As Makovetsky said, Depo’t shopping centers show good performance, so the issue of selling them is not on the agenda.
“This business demonstrates good efficiency. The facilities stably show profits. Rental rates this year have grown by about 30%. Therefore, we plan to develop this area of business and the issue of selling them is not on the agenda,” the head of the Foxtrot Group said.
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
