Ukraine plans to boost road repair by 50% in 2018 compared with 2017, to 3,000 km, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Kistion has said.
“At the beginning of April, it was ordered to start repair and construction work in order to complete the necessary tasks before the beginning of the next winter. If last year about 2,000 kilometers were repaired, in 2018 we should improve more than 3,000 kilometers of Ukrainian roads,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
He said that the government is waiting a road repair plan for 2018-2020 from the State Automobile Road Agency of Ukraine, also known as Ukravtodor, adding that this year the government provides a record-breaking UAH 45.7 billion for the last three years to update the country’s road infrastructure. In particular, UAH 19 billion is announced for repair of national roads, UAH 11.53 billion for local roads, which are now tackled by regional administrations, UAH 2.5 billion for safety on roads and UAH 3.4 billion for the operation of national roads – lighting, marking, cleaning and other things.
“Today, Volodymyr Groysman instructed Ukravtodor to carry out a large-scale audit of the state of Ukrainian roads, especially those that were repaired in 2017. The quality of repair is top priority for the government. The work must be carried out impeccably, and every hryvnia from the budget must be effectively invested,” the deputy prime minister said.
Groysman said earlier that the plan to finance the road sector for this year is UAH 45.7 billion. Works will be carried out at 218 facilities. Almost 60% of blueprints have been designed. The updated construction standard has been issued, and it must become a table book for road services.
Concession road projects are being prepared synchronously. One of them, according to plan, could be the Krakovets-Lviv road. There is investors’ interest in this project, Ukravtodor said.
The head of government drew attention to the fact that weather conditions do not allow large-scale road works to start, but when the weather becomes warm everything should starting working very quickly.
“This year we will start work in April. We need to deal with all the contractors, with all the services to have them ready,” Groysman said.
In 2017, Ukraine reconstructed and built more than 2,000 km of roads, which is twice as high as in 2016. Road works were conducted on the roads throughout Ukraine. The 2017 road budget exceeded UAH 30 billion.
T.B.Fruit Group, one of the largest processors of fruits and berries in Ukraine, increased organic juice concentrate production by 20% in 2017, to 3,000 tonnes.
“We have an upward pace of organic concentrated juice production – 20% growth in 2017. Last year, we produced about 3,000 tonnes of juice concentrate and it was all exported to European countries and the United States,” Production Director of T.B.Fruit Group Oleh Mochaliuk told journalists at the second international congress Organic Ukraine 2018 on Thursday.
According to him, the group recently started production of organic juice concentrate from elderberries.
“In the juice concentrate industry we occupy about 60% of the Ukrainian market, 12% of the European market and 8% of the global market,” Mochaliuk said.
The total capacity of the group for the production of juice concentrate is about 100,000 tonnes per year, of which organic is 4%.
T.B.Fruit Group was established in July 2011, uniting all assets of Taras Barschovsky: Yablunevy Dar, T.B.Fruit Dwikozy fruit processing plant in Poland, Tank Trans Ukraine and Tank Trans Polska, which transport bulk cargo by road, and a fruit-growing complex, which includes apple-trees, cherry-trees, and strawberry and raspberry fields on 700 hectares.
T.B.Fruit Group owns eight juice concentrate plants in Ukraine, Moldova and Poland.
T.B.Fruit produces freshly squeezed juice under the Galicia trademark in Ukraine.
Vinnytsia dairy plant Roshen, part of the Roshen Group, has expanded geography of export supplies by five countries thanks to entering markets of Singapore, New Zealand, Denmark, China and Qatar.
According to a posting on Roshen’s website, in 2016-2017, products were exported to 45 countries.
Vinnytsia dairy plant Roshen exported 12,918 tonnes of dairy products in 2017.
In total, the plant produced 35,577 tonnes of products last year.
Vinnytsia dairy plant Roshen started operating in June 2014. The milk processing capacity of the plant is 600 tonnes of milk a day.
Britain’s Ferrexpo Plc with assets in Ukraine is mulling the squeeze-out at private joint-stock company Poltava Mining (Poltava region), the largest iron ore pellet producer in Ukraine.
The company told Interfax-Ukraine that the issue is being analyzed.
“Ferrexpo plans to take this way,” the group said.
Currently, Ferrexpo Plc owns 100% of Ferrexpo AG, which, in turn, owns 99.11% of the shares of Poltava Mining and 100% of the shares of Yeristovo Mining.
In Ukraine, after updating the legislation, a number of companies initiated a squeeze-out procedure in enterprises in which their share exceeds 95%.
Ferrexpo is a Swiss headquartered iron ore company with assets in Ukraine. It mines, processes and sells high quality iron ore pellets to the global steel industry.
Odesa cognac factory, one of the largest cognac producers in Ukraine, received UAH 5.4 million in net profit in 2017 against UAH 115,000 in net loss in 2016.
According to the company’s report on holding a shareholders’ meeting on April 15, its assets for the year increased by almost 32.8%, to UAH 1.05 billion, while fixed assets decreased by 13.9%, to UAH 77.62 million.
Uncovered loss in 2017 decreased by 19.1%, to UAH 22.9 million. Long-term liabilities of the enterprise decreased by 2.6%, to UAH 340.45 million, while current liabilities increased 1.8-fold, to UAH 571.7 million.
Total debtor indebtedness amounted to UAH 625.9 million.
Odesa cognac factory a part of Global Spirits holding, which also unites Khortytsa distillery, Poltava distillery. The structure also includes distribution units: Ukrainian Distribution Company, Khortytsa Trade House, and Megapolis USA.
Capital expenditures of the national budget of Ukraine in 2017 increased by UAH 14.2 billion, or by 53%, compared to 2016, to UAH 40.9 billion, Deputy Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said, when presenting the national budget figures in Kyiv. According to the materials presented, total expenditure of the budget last year amounted to UAH 839.5 billion, which is 3.6% less than the target.
According to him, the ministry estimates the growth of capital expenditures as one of the main successes of the national budget along with the reduction in the actual deficit to UAH 47.9 billion, or 1.6% of GDP.
According to the ministry, in 2016 capital spending amounted to UAH 26.6 billion, in 2017 some UAH 17.5 billion. The revenues of the general fund of the national budget for 2017 amounted to UAH 698.4 billion against the planned UAH 702 billion, Marchenko noted.
