The Cabinet of Ministers at the initiative of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade has decided to set up the Intellectual Property Council under the leadership of First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv, who will coordinate the processes for the functioning and development of a system for the legal protection of intellectual property in Ukraine.
“The creation of the council is another important step towards the development of the intellectual property system in Ukraine, which is an important priority for the work of the government. This also corresponds to Ukraine’s obligations under international agreements that are part of the world system for the protection of intellectual property rights,” Kubiv said.
According to the report, the council will act as an interim advisory body to the Cabinet of Ministers.
Its main tasks are coordination of interaction of executive authorities in the field of intellectual property, as well as development of proposals for the development of this sphere, ensuring Ukraine’s integration into the international and European intellectual space.
Antonov Airlines, a division of Antonov State Enterprise (Kyiv), has taken part in preparations for the launch of a super-powerful Falcon Heavy rocket from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida (the United States), Ukraine’s Embassy in the United States has reported.
“Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines took a direct part in preparations for the launch by providing its An-124-100 Ruslan aircraft for the transportation of rocket components. The issue concerns part of the main fairing of the rocket with dimensions that can get only into a powerful cargo plane as the Ukrainian Ruslan,” the embassy reported on its Facebook page on Wednesday.
The report notes that a month ago a Ukrainian aircraft traveled a distance of 3,613 kilometers within four-and-a-half hours, ensuring timely delivery of parts of the Falcon Heavy rocket for its timely launch at Cape Canaveral.
A new super-powerful Falcon Heavy launch vehicle lifted off from Cape Canaveral on its first test flight on February 6. The launch of the rocket was broadcast by SpaceX.
The company was preparing for the launch of the rocket for seven years.
The rocket stands 70 m tall, its core has a diameter of 3.66 m, and when fully assembled with its side boosters is 12.2 m wide and weighs 1,420 tonnes.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s personal car – a cherry red Roadster – was fired into space on board the Falcon Heavy. Last month, Musk wrote on Twitter that he really liked the idea of sending a car to an endless journey through space, where millions of years later it could be discovered by representatives of an alien civilization.
The Economic Development and Trade Ministry expects that first auctions to sell small privatization facilities would start in June 2018, and amendments to over 35 bylaws are to precede this, as the parliament passed bill No. 7066 on the privatization of state-owned property.
“The task number one is to make all the necessary amendments, according to our calculations, to change more than 35 bylaws, of which three are relatively difficult. We hope that they would be adopted by the end of April. Accordingly, in May the first lots will be determined, and in June auctions to sell the first lots with small privatization facilities would be held,” First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade Maksym Nefyodov said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday.
At the same time, he said that the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade is counting on the signing of the law on the privatization of state-owned property by the president this month.
As reported, the Verkhovna Rada in January passed in the second reading and as a whole the government bill on privatization of public property with technical and legal amendments, including the one granting investors the opportunity to obtain protection under English law.
Acting Head of the State Property Fund Vitaliy Trubarov said the new law establishes a time period of twelve months for privatization of large facilities and five months for small ones. If an enterprise’s assets in the previous year exceeded UAH 250 million, it falls under large privatization and will be sold with the assistance of an advisor, everything that is less is small privatization, which will take place exclusively on electronic platforms, he said.
The Export Credit Agency (ECA) could issue first pilot products at the end of this year, Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister, Trade Representative of Ukraine Natalia Mykolska has said.
“We hope that by the end of this year ECA could issue first pilot products. I want to pay attention that any new company requires some period of operation in the pilot mode, especially if it provides services that were not presented on the market previously,” she told reporters after a government meeting where the decision to approve the creation of the ECA was made.
Mykolska recalled that UAH 200 million provided in the 2018 budget will not provide for the full-featured operation of the institution. Therefore, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade hopes to increase budgetary financing and raise funds from international sources.
“At the same time, we see an understanding on the part of lawmakers, the government, that if we take the steps necessary to create a legal entity for ECA, we can talk about increasing, including budget financing. Possibly this year or the next it would be the sums which would provide the necessary tools to support Ukrainian exporters,” the trade representative said, recalling that the initial application for financing ECA was at the level of UAH 364 million.
According to her, to attract funding from abroad, it will be necessary to amend the legislation on corporate governance.
Mykolska said that the attraction of funds from financial institutions is possible through loans, entry into authorized capital or joint programs, when ECA will be an agent of a concrete international institution, providing some services. Another type is the agency’s cooperation with an institution abroad.
“We have established a working group with authors of the bill from the deputy corps and experts. We are working to create a general bill [with the necessary amendments to the current legislation on ECA]… It will not be the last one. When ECA starts operating the necessity of making changes could appear,” Mykolska said.
Participants in the pharmaceutical market are concerned about a lack of transparency in the formation of the National List of Essential Medicines, as well as the definition of nosologies that it covers. “The principles of forming the national list today remain unknown for the pharmaceutical industry,” President of the Medicines Manufacturers of Ukraine association Petro Bahriy said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine.
He noted a lack of clear criteria on which drugs are included or withdrawn from the list does not allow domestic pharmaceutical manufacturers to plan production of certain medicines for several years.
“Pharmaceutical plants plan production of certain drugs based on the national list, invest money in the development of this drug for years, and then the state changes approaches and this drug does not get into the national list,” he said.
The head of the strategic planning department of Farmak pharmaceutical company, Yuriy Komarov, in turn, emphasized that questions are also caused by the method of calculating the need for drugs from the national list by medical institutions and the period for which they are purchased.
Health facilities should calculate and provide 100% need for medicines from the list for one quarter in order to be able to take into account any changes in the health system, as well as purchase drugs that are not included in the list, taking into account that at present the list does not cover nosologies, according to which a number of categories of patients previously received the drugs they needed, Komarov noted.
Antonov State Enterprise (Kyiv) saw UAH 5.9 billion of net revenue I 2017, which is 1.6 times more than in 2016, according to tentative data from the Ukroboronprom State Concern. The press service of Ukroboronprom reported that net profit was UAH 180 million.
Antonov is the leading Ukrainian developer and manufacturer of aircraft, a recognized world leader in the niche of transport aircraft. The enterprise cooperates with more than 75 countries. By the decision of the government, the enterprise has been part of the Ukroboronprom State Concern since April 2015.
According to the enterprise, in 2016, its net profit under Ukrainian accounting standards grew 4.1-fold, to UAH 178.1 million and net revenue fell by 0.16%, to UAH 3.64 billion.
