AGCO, a global leader in production and delivery of agricultural machinery and equipment, seeks to occupy 20% of the Ukrainian imported agricultural machinery market in three years. “Last year we finished with the 9% share of the Ukrainian market of foreign agricultural machinery, and by 2018 we are planning to reach the market share that will have a two-digit number, and with favorable business conditions we plan to reach around 15% of the market by the end of this year. And in three years they are going to have 20% and this will be an excellent result,” Senior Vice President and General Manager of AGCO in Europe and the Middle East Rob Smith said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, in 2016-2017, the market of agricultural machinery in Ukraine tripled, and last year hit a record for the supply of imported equipment during the country’s independence.
“Over 3,500 tractors were brought in. According to our forecasts and expectations, in the coming years the market for foreign brand tractors in Ukraine will increase to 4,000 units. 2018 still has slower sales and demonstrates market stabilization after the peak in 2017, but there are all chances to become the second best year in the history of modern Ukraine,” Smith said.
The vice president of the company said that currently AGCO in Ukraine is represented by its main brands Fendt, GSI, Massey Ferguson and Valtra.
In addition, by the end of 2018, the tracked tractor Fendt 1100 MT will be introduced, and in 2019 the company plans to introduce the Ideal combine harvester on the Ukrainian market.
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has approved the acquisition of 51% of shares in public joint-stock company Bank Lviv by Switzerland’s responsAbility Participations AG, the asset management company. The NBU said on its website that the decision was made on June 23.
Bank Lviv earlier reported that the package of documents to approve the acquisition by the new strategic investor was submitted on September 12, 2017.
Bank Lviv was registered in 1991. Its ultimate beneficiary holding over 99.9% of shares was citizen of Iceland Margeir Petursson.
The bank ranked 44th among 84 operating banks in terms of assets as of January 1, 2018 (UAH 1.938 billion), according to the NBU.
According to a posting on the website of responsAbility Participations, 60% of its shares belong to Swiss financial institutions, including Baumann&Cie, Raiffeisen Switzerland, Swiss Re Foundation, Vontobel Beteiligungen, 21% – to private investors and 19% – to managers and employees.
The core business of responsAbility Participations is investment in developing markets.
Ukraine and Serbia are holding talks to launch the Belgrade-Kyiv regular flight, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said.
“We have started the negotiations… on the launch of a new regular flight between Belgrade and Kyiv,” Vucic said after the talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Belgrade on Tuesday.
He said that the launch of the flight would help to establish business and cultural ties between Ukraine and Serbia.
Vucic said that last year over 10,000 tourists from Ukraine visited Serbia.
“We believe that this tourist flow would grow more,” he said.
The Serbian president showed the interest that citizens of Serbia travel to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s housing stock as of January 1, 2018 totaled 984.8 million square meters of space, which is 0.7% or 6.9 million square meters more than as of January 1, 2017.
The State Statistics Service has reported that the figures are presented, not taking into account the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea and Sevastopol and certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
According to the report, 60.9% or 599.4 million square meters of housing space was located in urban areas.
The share of apartment-type houses was 98.4% of the entire housing stock, while the share of shared apartment-style housing space and housing space in nonresidential buildings was 1.6%.
According to the report, as of January 1, 2018, there were 17 million apartments in Ukraine, and the share of one-room apartments was 19.5%, two-room apartments – 36.6%, three-room apartments – 32.6% and four-room and larger apartments – 11.3%.
