Business news from Ukraine

Credit Agricole Bank (Kyiv) saw a 37% rise in profit in 2017, to UAH 1.11 billion, the bank has said in a press release.
“For Credit Agricole Bank, this was a successful financial year with a record net profit of UAH 1.11 billion. Along with this remarkable financial result, I would like to emphasize the increase in the bank’s contribution to the economy of Ukraine, which was made possible by increasing the bank’s loan portfolio by 25% in 2017 after growth of 12% in 2016. This positive trend creates the prerequisites for an increase in the bank’s net income in 2018,” the press service of Credit Agricole Bank said, citing CFO Regis Lefevre.
According to the report, the growth of the bank’s profit was achieved due to diversification of the main sources of the bank’s revenues and a decrease in the cost of risk.
Net income of the bank decreased by UAH 86 million or 3% in 2017 compared to 2016, to UAH 2.791 billion thanks to the reduction in currency spreads and the number of currency forward contracts with customers. The decrease in net income of the bank was compensated mainly due to an improvement in the cost of risk, which fell by 68%, or UAH 594 million compared to 2016 and amounted to minus UAH 275 million, the bank said.
Credit Agricole Bank was founded in 1993. Credit Agricole S.A. on January 1, 2017 owned a 99.9961% stake in PJSC Credit Agricole Bank.
Credit Agricole Bank ranked 11th among 88 operating banks in the country on October 1, 2017 by total assets (UAH 30.159 billion), according to the National Bank of Ukraine.

Private joint-stock company Weidmann Malyn paper factory (MPF, Zhytomyr region), the only producer of electrical insulating board for power engineering machines in Ukraine, increased production by 5.9% in January 2018 year-over-year, to almost UAH 52.23 million. According to statistics of the UkrPapir association, paper output in natural terms rose by 13%, to 460 tonnes, while cardboard production decreased by 23.6%, to 390 tonnes.
MPF Weidmann is a member of the WICOR international group, the only company in Eastern Europe that can supply almost all kinds of electrical insulating paper and cardboard meeting regional and international standards. In 2017, the factory increased production of commodity goods by 15.9%, to almost UAH 591 million.

The commissioning of the new dual-track Beskydsky Tunnel in Lviv region will remove the existing problems and eliminate “bottlenecks of cargo traffic to Slovakia and Hungary, Acting Chairman of PJSC Ukrzaliznytsia Yevhen Kravtsov has told journalists during an inspection trip to Beskydsky Tunnel.
“If to look at history, this project or, more precisely, the need to build the second tunnel, was caused by an objective necessity, since the old tunnel was built more than 100 years ago, is at the final stage of its operation and requires conservation as soon as possible. And if we leave everything as it is, freight traffic in the direction of Hungary and Slovakia would be extremely complicated. Therefore the tunnel is an objective necessity to ensure freight traffic,” he said.
In addition, according to Kravtsov, the tunnel significantly increases the throughput capacity in this area, as today 47 pairs of trains pass the tunnel, and the new one will accept 100 pairs or more.
“The actuality is that we see a steady growth in traffic volumes in the direction of western border crossings. This is demand from Ukrainian exporters, primarily metallurgists, grain traders, chemists, etc. Moreover, the tunnel is part of the Fifth International Transport Corridor,” he said.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved the budget of the Social Insurance Fund for 2018 with a surplus of UAH 1 billion.
According to government resolution No. 70 of February 14, the budget of the Social Insurance Fund was approved with a revenue part of UAH 23 billion, while its expenditure part amounts to UAH 22 billion. In particular, the revenue part together with the balance of funds at the beginning of the year was UAH 22.884 billion.
The expenditure part includes material security and social services for UAH 11.8 billion, insurance payments of UAH 8.3 billion, insurance costs for medical and social assistance for UAH 600 million, prevention of insurance cases for UAH 22.6 million, expenses associated with the performance of the insurer’s duties for UAH 69.6 million, expenses for the development and functioning of the fund’s information and analytical systems for UAH 33 million, administrative and business expenses of UAH 1.2 billion.
The reserve of funds is UAH 284.9 million.
It is noted that the adopted budget will allow transferring the amount of monthly insurance payments to victims at work, modernizing (recalculating) such payments for the period of 2008-2011, providing financing for medical rehabilitation of insured persons.

The first Ukrainian contest of biomedical startups MBioS Challenge has been launched in Ukraine, the finalists of which will be able to present their works in London at the annual conference of the Ukrainian Medical Association of the UK (UMAUK).
Coordinator of the National Council for Innovation Development Alla Oliynyk said at a press conference on Wednesday said that the contest is not limited to any specific areas in the field of medical technologies. The organizers will consider startups at the level of finished products and at the level of prototypes and ideas.
At the same time, she said that special attention will be paid to projects following the world trends in the field of medical technologies.
“Particularly [projects] in the context of world trends in which medicine is moving are interesting: it is personalized medicine, point delivery of medicines and many other things. If we are talking about those technologies that can be applied in Ukraine, where we have many experts, of course, we are talking about blockchain technologies, artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, the recognition of images of augmented reality, the technologies on the basis of which the world today is building its understanding of medicine,” Oliynyk said.
In turn, Head of the organizing committee of iForum Oleksandr Olshansky said, commenting on the possibilities of using blockchain technology in medicine, that it provides the opportunity of storing any data on medical manipulations, cutting off the possibility of their modification.
“From the point of view of medicine, this, of course, is an important thing, since blockchain allows you to create non-qualified sources of data,” he said.