The High Court of Justice in London (the UK), following sessions in early March, has issued a ruling obliging Rossyn Investing Corp., Milbert Ventures Inc and ZAO Ukrtransitservice Ltd, firms associated with Ihor Kolomoisky and Hennadiy Boholiubov, to detail the information on $1.9 billion worth of transactions with PrivatBank (Kyiv) funds received from other persons.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) earlier claimed that prior to its nationalization in December 2016, PrivatBank was involved in large-scale and coordinated frauds, which caused at least $5.5 billion in damage. The NBU hired Kroll to audit PrivatBank.
After the nationalization, the bank became 100% owned by the state and UAH 116.8 billion (over $4.4 billion at the current rate) in additional capital was injected into it through the issue of government bonds and an exchange of them for the bank’s shares.
Late in June 2017, the Cabinet decided to inject another UAH 38.5 billion (almost $1.5 billion) into the bank on the basis of NBU proposals and conclusions by EY, which audited PrivatBank. The first tranche worth UAH 22.5 billion was allocated in July 2017 and another UAH 16 billion in December 2017.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman predicts the launch of the Innovation Development Fund in Ukraine in July this year, according to his Twitter page.
“This year we have allocated UAH 50 million for the Innovation Development Fund, which will start work in July. And this money will be enough to finance up to 80 Ukrainian start-ups, each of which will receive between $25,000 and $75,000,” Groysman said.
Deputy Minister of Finance of Ukraine Oksana Markarova, in turn, said that the idea of creating the fund to support start-ups was positively accepted by businesses.
“A transparent fund, maximally distant from officials, in accordance with the best models that worked in Israel, France and other countries, in which we will attract additional co-investment from our international partners and possibly business, can become a real center of the start-up system in the large innovative galaxy of Ukraine,” she wrote on Twitter.
According to Markarova, on March 20 the council for the development of innovations in Ukraine, created last year, will begin active work on launching the fund and forming its future bodies both within the framework of a specially created working group and jointly with experts and the public.
As reported, in July 2017 Groysman supported the idea of creating a “fund of funds” to support Ukrainian start-ups on the terms of public and private partnership.
Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada has passed at first reading government’s bill No. 4571 amending Article 5 of the law on distribution of samples of audiovisual pieces, phonograms, videograms, software and databases, which transfer control over the issue of license keys and labels to owners of these products.
Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade Mykhailo Titarchuk said, when presenting the bill, cases have recently recorded when fraudsters illegally receive license keys using fictitious license agreements, and therefore “we offer a simple mechanism to counteract these phenomena.” According to him, the bill clarifies the procedure for applications for obtaining license keys and labels and introduces a rule under which owners can control the issue of these keys and labels and timely counteract the illegal use of these protective elements.
The bill provides that within three working days after the issue of license keys and labels, the Ministry of Economic Development will publish a list of designations for which the license keys and labels have been issued, data on the applicant for which a decision has been made to issue license keys and labels, the issuance date and the quantity of issued license keys and labels on its official website. “The bill is aimed at creating an additional mechanism to combat piracy and violating the rights of copyright items,” Titarchuk said.
According to him, the adoption of this bill will improve the investment climate in Ukraine and create more favorable conditions for doing business.
Transport companies in Ukraine in January 2018 decreased transportation of goods by 13.4% compared to January 2017, to 45.2 million tonnes.
According to the State Statistics Service, freight turnover for this period decreased by 9.3%, to 25.7 billion tonne-kilometers.
According to statistical data, in January 2018 railways transported 21.4 million tonnes of cargo within the country and for exports, which is 5.2% less than in January 2017. Transportation of coal decreased by 30.7%, oil and petroleum products by 26.4%, chemical and mineral fertilizers by 20.5%, coke by 18.3%, grain and flour by 12.5%, ferrous metal by 7.7% and timber by 5.6%. Iron and manganese ore transportation grew by 8.5%, cement – by 12.2%, scrap ferrous metals by 21.3% and construction materials by 47.5%.
In the total volume of cargo transportation by water transport, foreign traffic accounted for 88.3%. Compared to January 2017, the volume of foreign cargo shipments increased by 54.1%.
In January 2018, the volume of cargo transportation through pipelines fell. Thus, gas pumping fell by 24.2%, oil by 15.5%. Transit of oil decreased 21.2%, gas 32%.
Transportation of goods by air in January 2018 grew by 25.1%, to 100,000 tonnes.
The Economic Development and Trade Ministry of Ukraine is disappointed by a decision of the European Commission (EC) to reject price commitments proposed by Metinvest Group and other hot-rolled steel exporters in exchange for non-applying the previously introduced anti-dumping duties to them.
“We are very disappointed by this decision of Europe, especially in the context of the provisions of Article 50 of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, which, in particular, prefers price obligations. Ukraine has repeatedly stressed the importance of these provisions in the context of preserving and developing free trade between Ukraine and the EU,” Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Ukraine’s Trade Representative Natalia Mykolska told Interfax-Ukraine.
She also said that Ukrainian producers are the historical suppliers of hot-rolled steel to the EU market. “And they were ready to fall back on self-limitation to maintain the current trade regime. The government, for its part, is ready to provide various mechanisms for monitoring the fulfillment of these obligations and to be in constant dialogue with the European Commission,” the trade representative said.
Earlier it was reported that the European Commission rejected price commitments proposed by Metinvest Group and other hot-rolled steel exporters from Ukraine, Russia, Iran and Brazil in exchange for non-applying the previously introduced anti-dumping duties to them. The verdict came into force on March 10. “Currently, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade jointly with the national industry is analyzing the decision in detail, while at the same time we will continue the dialogue with the European Commission and work with the national industry to ensure access of Ukrainian products to the EU market and the implementation of the Association Agreement,” Mykolska said.
Mriya agroholding has created a research and development (R&D) center for increasing effectiveness of production thanks to innovative solutions, introduction and testing of IT technologies in companies and implementation of new production fields. According to a press release of the agroholding, the R&D center will work in five fields: tests, quality of soil, Agriculturist’s Map, mixing plants and UAV.
“The center is created in response to the unbiased need to continuously improve the efficiency of the company’s own production. We will independently evaluate advanced technologies, new practices and the best world innovative solutions in plant growing, test them in our conditions for the purpose of further implementation in production processes,” Project Manager and Head of the center Oleksandr Khmeliuk.
The company said that at the first stage of agronomic expertise, theoretical assumptions, justifications, and calculations are carried out. If the need for innovations is confirmed, they are tested in production at the next stage. At the final stage, after confirmation of the effectiveness is the implementation.
One of the main innovations for Mriya is its own soil analysis laboratory. “Taking into account that the minimum annual need for a qualitative analysis of soils for the company is 30,000 hectares, an economically viable solution was the acquisition of its own laboratory. This will enable to optimize the cost of mineral fertilizers, which share is up to 30% of the production cost, and manage the quality of soils” the company said.
In addition, in 2017, the agroholding developed and implemented the Agriculturist’s Map project, which provides access to an interactive map of fields even without an Internet connection and almost completely abandons paper reporting. At the same time, as expected, in the near future the analysis of monitoring of each field will be optimized up to 2-3 minutes, and inspection acts on the state of crops will be drawn up automatically based on the embedded correspondence algorithm.
In the current season, it is planned to test the acquired mixing plant, which will improve the quality of working solutions for spraying crops, control the entry of the required amount of preparations onto the field, and introduce the practice of manufacturing so-called “working solutions.” The plant can be either mobile or stationary.
