Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is confident that Ukraine will continue cooperation with international financial institutions (IFIs).
“It is clear that the achievement of macroeconomic stability has become possible, first of all, thanks to cooperation with international financial institutions. I am firmly convinced that we will continue cooperation in the future, because we are the only team in Ukraine’s history that ensured the implementation of six consecutive memorandums with the IMF [International Monetary Fund]. Before that, they promised, they took money and forgot to carry out reforms,” the head of state said at a meeting of the National Investment Council in Kyiv on Friday.
At the same time, he added that the IMF funds are sent to the country’s forex reserves, which in the past four years grew 3.5-fold, to $18 billion.
“Despite the fact that Ukraine paid more than $4 billion this year, forex reserves now amount to $18 billion. Compare with the situation that was late 2014 – early 2015: forex reserves – $5 billion, and you had to pay $8 billion. How could we avoid default? They believed us, and today the most difficult period also passed, and in these four years the forex reserves grew 3.5-fold. This is the answer where are the funds of the IMF. They are carefully preserved in the forex reserves of the country,” Poroshenko said.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will visit Ukraine on May 29-30, the German Embassy in Ukraine has reported.
“German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will visit Ukraine from May 29 to May 30, 2018. On May 29, the German president will hold talks in Kyiv with Ukrainian President [Petro] Poroshenko and Prime Minister [Volodymyr] Groysman, and examine the state of reforms in Ukraine,” the embassy said in a statement released on Friday.
In addition, Steinmeier will speak before the students of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
On May 30, he will meet in Kyiv with students and teachers who study and teach German respectively and in Lviv with students and teachers of German studies.
The embassy said that Steinmeier would also mark the 10th anniversary of the “Schools: Partners for the Future” initiative.
Earlier on Friday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, while opening a meeting of the National Investment Council, said that the German president would visit Ukraine next week.
Ukragrocom and Hermes-Trading intend to complete the purchase of Inter-Contact-Agro LLC and Start (both based in Kirovohrad region) worth $5.6 million by May 30.
According to a report on the group’s website, the purchase of the companies is carried out within the framework of increasing the land bank to 120,000 hectares. Two agribusinesses manage more than 6,500 hectares of agricultural land in Kirovohrad and Odesa regions.
The group of the companies Ukragrocom and Hermes-Trading are part of an agricultural corporation specializing in production of grain and oilseeds, breeding pigs and cattle.
The group currently leases about 114,000 hectares of land, has five elevators with a total capacity of 353,000 tonnes of grain, a dairy farm, and a sugar plant.
Cattle stock at the farms is 6,000, pig numbers about 11,000 animals.
According to the unified state register of legal entities and individuals, the ultimate beneficiary of Inter-Contact-Agro and Start is the largest shareholder and the chairman of the board of directors of Kernel agricultural holding, Andriy Verevsky.
The revenue of Inter-Contact-Agro in 2017 decreased by 16.7%, to UAH 30.92 million, and net loss by four times, to UAH 4.28 million. Data for 2018 are not yet available.
Businessman Vasyl Khmelnytsky intends to expand the area of the UNIT.City innovative park in Kyiv from 19 hectares to 26 hectares.
“We are now buying at dual prices those plots that were taken before us, and we’ll reach about 26 hectares,” Khmelnytsky said in an interview with the Novoye Vremia edition.
The UNIT.City innovative park officially opened in April 2017 in the territory of the former Kyiv motorcycle plant. The area of the park is 19 hectares. It includes the co-working area Chasopys-UNIT, the UNIT Factory IT school, three laboratories, a business campus, a fund and five accelerators. The park’s residents are 38 companies.
According to UNIT.City’s website, it is planned by 2019 to create four new business campuses, three accelerators, four funds and increase the number of resident companies to 100. By 2025, the park should include 25 hectares of space for work and leisure, as well as more than 300 companies and R&D laboratories (Research&Development are laboratories for the development of innovative technologies).
The managing partners of UNIT.City are Maksym Bakhmatov and Maksym Yakover (the CEO of the park).
Yakover is also a co-owner of the Chasopys creative co-working space at 3 Lva Tolstoho Street in Kyiv.
Ukrainian metallurgical enterprises in April 2018 increased steel production by 6% compared to the same period in 2017, to 1.721 million tonnes, rising from the 14th to 13th place in the ranking of 64 countries, the world’s main manufacturers of this product, compiled by the World Steel Association (Worldsteel).
In April growth in steelmaking compared to April 2017 was recorded in most of the top ten countries, except for Japan, Germany, and Turkey.
The top ten steel producers in April are as follows: China (76.698 million tonnes, a 4.8% growth), Japan (8.723 million tonnes, a 0.4% decline), India (8.692 million tonnes, a growth of 5.6%), the United States (6.930 million tonnes, an increase of 3.6%), Russia (6.030 million tonnes, an increase of 2.4%), South Korea (5.893 million tonnes, an increase of 7.1%), Germany (3.775 million tonnes, a 1.7% decline), Turkey (2.953 million tonnes, a 3.1% decline), Brazil (2.949 million tonnes, an increase of 1.9%), and Italy (2.061 million tonnes, an increase of 3.7%).
They are followed by Iran (1.950 million tonnes, an increase of 12.4%), Mexico (1.790 million tonnes, an increase of 13.7%), and Ukraine (1.721 million tonnes, an increase of 6%).
Some 64 countries in April 2018 produced 148.322 million tonnes of steel, which is 4.1% more than in April 2017.
