The leaders of the presidential electoral rating are leader of the Batkivschyna party Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of the Civil Platform party Anatoliy Hrytsenko and the Opposition Bloc party Yuriy Boiko, according to the results of the social research conducted by the Social Monitoring Center and the Ukrainian Institute of Sociological Studies named after A. Yaremenko.
According to the results of the social research presented in Kyiv on Wednesday, 20.3% of Ukrainians willing to vote for Tymoshenko are those who decided that they will take part in the voting in the next presidential election (12.5% of all respondents). Some 14.8% of those polled who plan to go to the polls (9.1% among all respondents) are ready to vote for the leader of the Civil position. Boiko is the next in the rating – 12.3% (7.6%), leader of the Radical Party Oleh Liashko has 10.2% (6.3%).
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko occupies the fifth place, for whom 8.3% of respondents are ready to cast their votes, who confirmed their intention to vote (5.1% of all respondents).
Dynamo Kyiv will take on Ajax Amsterdam in the last qualifying round of the Champions League. In the second leg of the third qualifying round, the Dutch club defeated Belgium’s Standard 3-0 at home. The first game in Liege a week ago ended in a 2-2 draw.
Thus, Ajax will face Dynamo in the play-offs. The teams will play the first match in Amsterdam on August 22 and the return match in Kyiv on August 28.
AJAX AMSTERDAM, CHAMPIONS LEAGUE, DYNAMO KYIV, FOOTBALL CLUB
The surplus of Ukraine’s foreign trade in services in the first half of 2018 increased by 6% compared to the same period in 2017, to $2.826 billion (in the first half of 2017 some $2.658 billion), the State Statistics Service has said. According to its data, exports of services in January-June of 2018 increased by 5.7%, to $5.378 billion, imports by 4.9%, to $2.552 billion.
The ratio of coverage of imports by exports was 2.11 (for the six months of 2017 some 2.09).
Foreign trade operations were carried out with partners from 216 countries
First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Maksym Nefyodov and representatives of the leadership of Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) on August 14 met in Kyiv to discuss the possible participation of the Kuwaiti side in the privatization of Ukrainian state-owned enterprises, the ministry has said. “The KIA leadership noted the Kuwaiti side is interested in investing own funds in Ukrainian projects and the assets of investment funds in the initial placement of shares of Ukrainian companies on the world exchanges, real estate, financial market, services,” it said.
In particular, the first investment director of KIA and the deputy head of the mission, who attended the meeting, drew attention of the ministry representatives to the readiness to invest through the purchase of profitable enterprises, as well as trade and office centers, the report said.
The business confidence indicator in the construction market of Ukraine in the third quarter of 2018 improved by 2.8 percentage points (p.p.) compared to the second quarter, but remained negative at minus 18.7%. According to the survey of construction companies by the State Statistics Service, the assessment of a shortage of the current volume of orders reduced by 5 percentage points, to minus 40%, which corresponds to the situation in the first quarter of 2018.
According to the results of the survey, 42% of companies rated their current order volume as insufficient, 55% as normal for the season and only 2% as exceeding the norm.
Some 39% of respondents expect an increase in prices for their services in the third quarter of this year, which is 6 p.p. less than in the second quarter, while 2% of the companies surveyed predict a decrease in the cost of construction work, and 58% do not expect any changes in the price policy.
According to the service, companies participating in the survey are provided with orders for an average of five months, which corresponds to the indicators of the first and second quarters of this year.
The service said in the third quarter unfavorable weather conditions will not affect the work of construction companies, but 45% of respondents will continue to experience financial constraints. In addition, 27% of companies will be constrained by an insufficient demand, 19% by a shortage of labor.
Some 13% of the companies surveyed expect a reduction in the number of their employees in July-September 2018, while 22% predict an increase in the number of employees.
Madgicx, an Ad-Tech platform, wants to hire 20 IT specialists over the next year in Ukraine.
As digital advertising, Madgicx focuses on condensing successful Facebook advertising techniques into an automated, artificial intelligence platform.
“We’ve heard good things about Ukraine,” Idan Beker, company CTO, says in Kyiv. “Mainly that the workforce here has exceptional analytical skills and that they are devoted workers. The fact that the wages here are much cheaper than in Israel made our decision to hire our R&D team here.”
