Negotiations with Irish low-cost airline company Ryanair regarding its access to the Ukrainian market are in the final stage, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan has said, expressing hope that they will be successfully completed in January-February this year.
“We are already in the final stage of negotiations with Ryanair. I hope this will take place in January-February. There are technical moments that we are completing, but in general everything is fine. We had no concessions compared with positions we had last year,” he said live on the ZIK television channel.
He said that after the disruption of negotiations with Ryanair, the Infrastructure Ministry had a very good contact with Kyiv’s Boryspil Airport.
As reported, on July 10, 2017, Ryanair announced the cancellation of its planned flights to Ukraine after Boryspil airport had violated the agreement achieved at the Infrastructure Ministry with the airport officials and its incumbent CEO Pavlo Riabikin in March 2017.
Riabikin said that Ryanair put forward demands to Boryspil airport regarding flights to Kyiv, which did not comply with Ukrainian legislation.
Two days later, on July 12, 2017, after a special meeting with the leadership of the Infrastructure Ministry, the Justice Ministry, Boryspil airport, the Airports of Ukraine Association, and the Ukraine Investment Promotion Office, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman instructed the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine to evaluate the negotiation process on Ryanair flights to Ukraine and stated the need to resume these negotiations.
Cubomania, a Mykolaiv startup that develops interactive children’s cubes, was selected as one of the top 12 startups for the presentation of ShowStoppers LaunchIt at the Eureka Park specialized exhibit area during the International Consumer Electronics Show 2018 in Las Vegas.
A report posted on the website of the partner presentation company ShowStoppers says that the jury of “pitch” startups at Eureka Park this year include Nicholas Zaldastani, managing director at Zaldastani Ventures, Marita McGinn, manager of hardware products at Indiegogo, Sharona Justman, a co-founder of Step Strategy Advisors, an advisory firm focused on technology and consumer products, and Arthur Rubinfeld, founder of AIRVISION.
The winning company is invited to demonstrate and meet with more than 1,300 journalists expected to attend ShowStoppers.
The top 12 startups selected from 900 companies that applied for participation in ShowStoppers LaunchIt also include such companies as: Athom (the Netherlands) – maker of Homey, the heart of the smart home; Big Boy Systems (Belgium) – an audiovisual system for the creation of educational and professional content; Cardiomo Care (New York) – maker of wearable technology and an analytics platform for heart disease prevention; Cinema Snowglobes (San Francisco) – the beloved nostalgic snowglobe, reinvented for the 21st century; Pebby (California) – a robotics company.
Among the finalists are also Picoo (the Netherlands) – maker of a handheld computer for children; Robomart (California) – a fleet of on-demand, autonomous, self-driving stores for grocery retailers; SolarGaps (California) – solving the world’s energy crisis with a network of distributed-energy solutions for Smart Cities; Velco (France) – designing and selling solutions for smarter, more personalized urban mobility; Stream (the Netherlands) – developer of secure mobile WiFi hotspots with embedded Cloud SIM technology to enable unlimited data in over 100 countries, and Zhor-Tech (France) – maker of smart shoes.
Kyiv International Airport (Zhuliany) handled 1.852 million passengers in 2017, which was 64.2% up on 2016.
The airport serviced 1.768 million passengers who used international routes and 83,300 passengers who took domestic flights, the airport’s press service said.
The number of flights in 2017 included 23,257 both arrivals and departures, which was 27.3% more than in 2016. Of them, there were 19,115 international flights and 4,142 domestic ones.
The most popular international destinations in 2017 were Minsk, Dubai, Budapest, Ankara, Antalya, Sharm El Sheikh, Warsaw, and Rome, while popular domestic routes included Odesa, Zaporizhia, and Lviv.
In December 2017, the airport handled 155,400 passengers, which was 43.6% up on December 2016. Some 149,000 passengers travelled on international flights, while 6,400 people took domestic flights.
The number of flights in December 2017 was 1,877 for arrival and departure, which was 12.8% more than the same period of 2016. Of them, there were 1,584 international flights and 293 domestic ones.
The most popular international destinations in December 2017 were Dubai, Minsk, Ankara, Budapest, Warsaw, Memmingen, Sharm El Sheikh, Rome; while Odesa, Zaporizhia, Lviv topped the popular domestic routes.
Kyiv International Airport (Zhuliany) is located in the business center of the capital, seven km from the city center. It is the second largest airport in Ukraine in terms of the number of flights and passenger traffic.
The airport has three terminals with a total area is 21,000 square meters. Terminal B is separate facility for business-class service, it is part of the Fixed Base Operator (FBO) system. The airport’s runway is able to handle B-737 and A-320 aircraft.
Ukraine has taken 44th place in the global passport ranking, significantly improving its positions due to obtaining visa-free access to the Schengen countries in 2017 and thus leaving behind all countries of the former Soviet Union, except for the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – members of the European Union. Ukrainians can visit 114 countries without a visa.
According to the 2018 Henley & Partners Passport Index, which takes into account how many countries can be visited without applying for a visa, Germany retains its top spot for the fifth year running. In 2018, a German passport gives the right to visit 177 countries without a visa, one more country than last year.
Singapore is second (176 countries), whereas the third place is shared by eight states, in particular, Britain, Denmark, Italy, Norway, Finland, France, Sweden, and Japan. Citizens of these countries were given an opportunity to visit 175 countries without a visa. Most of them improved last year’s figures of visa-free access to other countries.
Russia took 48th place in the table, sharing it with Moldova and Montenegro. Russians can visit 110 countries without a visa. Almost all CIS countries improved last year’s figures on the number of countries with visa-free entry.
As for the countries in which programs for obtaining citizenship through investment are in place, then the widest choice of states with visa-free entry is offered by the passport of Austria (174 countries). The amount of necessary investment for obtaining an Austrian passport is EUR 8-10 million. Malta and Cyprus, whose citizenship can be obtained for investments of EUR 1-2 million, offer visa-free access to 169 and 159 countries respectively. Among the Caribbean countries with investment programs, the most mobile passport is the Saint Kitts and Nevis passport with visa-free access to 139 countries.
The last place in the rating is occupied by Afghanistan, whose citizens were granted visa-free access to only 24 countries.
The Henley & Partners Passport Index, formerly known as the Visa Restrictions Index (renamed in 2018), has been published since 2006 in cooperation with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which supports the world’s largest tourist information base.
A total of 200 countries and territories were analyzed in 2018.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman notes the importance of the adoption by the Cabinet of Ministers by the end of January of all the necessary decisions to launch support programs for farmers.
According to the press service of the government, Groysman believes that the key areas of work are the support of livestock production, first of all, the creation of new complexes and increase in livestock, targeted support for farmers, as well as support of agricultural machinery enterprises in order to preserve and increase the number of jobs in this sphere and providing agrarians with high-quality domestic production equipment.
“The main thing is to have at the end of 2018 funds and livestock, maximally increased, and saturated with (its own high-quality products) market,” the press service quoted the prime minister as saying.
In the context of supporting farming, the head of government drew attention to the need for early processing of mechanisms for the introduction of effective lending, mechanisms for compensating the cost of equipment – in conditions of purchasing equipment for a particular farm, as well as supporting cooperatives.
“Thus, we will launch mechanisms for real production support, but at the same time we assume the responsibility of the farmer for the fair registration of land and livestock. It is important not to waste time. All government resolutions should be adopted before the end of January. There are enough resources,” Groysman said.
Exports of Ukrainian farm produce to European countries for January-November 2017 amounted to $5.2 billion, which was 38.2% up on the same period in 2016, the Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry has said.
In particular, Ukraine exported grain worth $1.4 billion to the EU for this period, shipments of vegetable oil amounted to $1.3 billion and those of oilseed to $0.9 billion.
“Along with these traditional export-oriented products, we significantly increased exports of such products as malt extracts, flour products, cereals (by $31.7 million), bakery products and confectionery (by $15.4 million), creamery butter (by $12.4 million), casein (by $11.9 million), chocolate and other products containing cocoa (by $7.9 million), etc.,” Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food for European Integration Olha Trofimtseva was quoted as saying.
The top five countries that bought Ukrainian agricultural products in the EU for the period under review were the Netherlands (18.4%), Spain (14.4%), Poland (13.3%), Italy (11.8%), and Germany (10.3%), she said.
Ukrainian agrarian exports to the EU countries for the entire 2016 amounted to $4.2 billion, she added.
As reported with reference to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, shipments of Ukrainian agrarian products abroad in January-November 2017 grew by 19% compared to the same period in 2016, to $16.4 billion.
