The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has set up the Council for Trade and Sustainable Development, which will be headed by Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister and Ukraine’s Trade Representative Natalia Mykolska, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry has reported on its website. The government made the decision on Wednesday.
“The Council’s task is to organize the work of the advisory group on trade and sustainable development in accordance with the provisions of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement on the support of civil society, trade and development,” the report says.
The council will include representatives of government bodies and civil society.
European Protein Ukraine LLC has built a plant for production of high-protein supplements intended for fattening animals worth about $10 million in the town of Rokytne (Kyiv region). According to the company, the capacity of the new enterprise is 6,000 tonnes of finished products per month. This allows meeting the needs of both the domestic market and the markets of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The construction of the plant was started about two years ago. Its official opening is scheduled for June 15, 2018.
The founders of the European Protein Ukraine LLC are Germany’s Agrolife GmbH and Danish-based Fermentationexperts AS, which at the same time owns the technology of production protected by many patents.
The company said now there are two similar plants in the world.
Fermentationexperts AS is a manufacturer of fermented animal feed. The company’s headquarters is in Denmark. Currently it has manufacturing facilities in the United States, Ukraine, and Denmark.
Agrolife GmbH is a supplier of oilseeds, grains and feed additives for livestock in the markets of Germany, the EU, and Ukraine.
Banks providing housing mortgage loans expect that during the year average monthly mortgage volumes would grow by 10%, according to a poll of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) published in the fifth financial stability report. “Banks-respondents expect further growth in volumes of housing mortgage loans. Thirteen banks [out of 24 polled] predicted that in next 12 months average volumes of mortgage loans would grow by over 10%. Five more banks expected growth less than 10%. Six banks projected the unchanged volumes of new loans,” the NBU said in the report.
At the same time, the NBU said that the existing volumes of mortgages cannot affect the residential real estate market. The volume of lending in the first quarter of 2018 increased 3.9-fold and amounted to UAH 565 million. However, issuing less than 3,000 loans a year cannot affect the market: only in Kyiv on the secondary housing market annually more than 30,000 purchase and sale contracts are signed.
According to the poll, in 2017 and in the first quarter of 2018, the purchase of housing in the secondary market was dominated by the number of contracts and the volume of lending. At the same time, the volumes and number of loans issued under the partnership programs of banks with developers are gradually increasing.
According to banks, the main obstacle to the resumption of housing mortgages is the deficit of solvent borrowers with officially confirmed incomes. Thus, in the first quarter of 2018, the average debt service-to-income (DSTI) was 45%, which is 3 percentage points less than a year earlier. At the same time, 18% of the volume of loans granted is accounted for by borrowers who will spend more than 70% of their income on debt servicing. The NBU said that the circle of mortgage creditors remains limited.
The European Parliament (EP) on June 13 voted in favor of the third Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) programme for Ukraine foreseeing the provision of EUR 1 billion to Ukraine. European parliamentarians approved the package for Ukraine with 527 supportive votes, 124 votes against the provision of this assistance and 29 parliamentarians abstained from a vote.
“I am waiting for the final decision from the Council of the European Union (EU) in the near term,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on his Facebook page. As reported, the Council of the EU preliminarily approved the provision of financial assistance for Ukraine in the amount of EUR 1 billion, which will be used by Ukraine within two years. The loans will support economic stabilisation and a programme of structural reforms.
The Council of the EU said that the further disbursements will be conditional on Ukraine respecting democratic mechanisms and the rule of law, and guaranteeing respect for human rights.
The conditions will be laid down in a memorandum of understanding between Ukraine and the Commission. The Commission will be responsible for disbursing the macro-economic assistance. The Commission and the European External Action Service will monitor the fulfilment of the conditions,” the Council said.
Parliament, Council and Commission agreed a joint statement in the light of unfulfilled conditions and the cancellation of the third instalment of the previous programme.
According to the joint statement, the economic policy and financial conditions of the Memorandum of Understanding to be agreed between the European Union and Ukraine shall include inter alia obligations to strengthen the governance, the administrative capacities and the institutional set-up in particular for the fight against corruption in Ukraine, notably regarding a verification system for asset declarations, the verification of companies’ beneficial ownership data and a well-functioning specialised anticorruption court in line with the recommendations of the Venice Commission. Conditions on combating money laundering and tax avoidance shall also be considered.
“If the conditions are not met, the Commission shall temporarily suspend or cancel the disbursement of the macro-financial assistance,” the Parliament, the Council and the Commission said in the joint statement. A pre-condition for granting the Union’s macro-financial assistance should be that Ukraine respects effective democratic mechanisms, including a multi-party parliamentary system.
According to the published materials, the loans shall have a maximum average maturity of 15 years. It will be divided into two disbursements, which sizes will be approved additionally. The Union’s macro-financial assistance shall be made available for a period of two and a half years, starting from the first day after the entry into force of the Memorandum of Understanding with Ukraine.
The Union’s macro-financial assistance shall be disbursed to the National Bank of Ukraine. Subject to the provisions to be agreed in the Memorandum of Understanding, including a confirmation of residual budgetary financing needs, the Union funds may be transferred to the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance as the final beneficiary.
The EU recalled that since May 2014 Ukraine has received EUR 2.81 billion of macro-financial assistance from the Union. Following its technical mission of November 2017, the IMF revised its estimates of Ukraine’s external financing needs, identifying an additional gap of $4.5 billion for 2018 and 2019.
PJSC Research and Industrial Center Borschahivka chemical and pharmaceutical plant has filed a lawsuit to Kyiv’s business court against PrJSC Darnitsa pharmaceutical firm (both based in Kyiv) and a lawsuit against the municipal ownership department of the Kyiv City Council, seeking to declare invalid a trading session where shares in the plant were sold and the respective sale and purchase contract was signed. “After studying the materials of the lawsuit, the court declared them sufficient for accepting the lawsuit, opening the proceeding and hearing the case,” the business court said in a ruling published in the unified register of court rulings.
In turn, Darnitsa pharmaceutical firm filed the counterclaim against Borschahivka chemical and pharmaceutical plant seeking to declare valid its ownership rights to the shares of the plant.
Four persons also filed lawsuits to the business court of Kyiv with the same demands against Darnitsa pharmaceutical firm and the municipal ownership department of the Kyiv City Council.
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
