State Secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Volodymyr Bondarenko has signed a joint action plan with the Canadian partners for implementing the best practices of strategic planning in the Ukrainian government based on results-based management principles.
“Canada will provide experts to the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers, who will assist in the development of strategic planning instruments and analysis of state policies and will train Ukrainian specialists. This will allow the government to plan state policy more effectively and coordinate the implementation of strategic plans in a comprehensive manner using key performance indicators,” the press service of the Ukrainian government said.
In addition, the parties during a meeting of Cabinet Minister Oleksandr Sayenko and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in Kyiv discussed the progress of reforms in Ukraine and cooperation next year.
“One of the areas of active cooperation is public administration reform. The joint action plan, we’ve signed, foresees, in particular, cooperation to enhance the capability of the Ukrainian government and public institutions, the implementation of a methodology for analyzing public policies, gender impact, developing a reform monitoring system, and providing international expertise. It also provides for measures for training and exchange of experience for specialists on the reform issues,” Sayenko said.
The State Property Fund of Ukraine has included private joint-stock company President Hotel, public joint-stock company United Mining-Chemical Company, state-owned enterprises (SOE) Electronmash, Electrotyazhmash, Dniprovsky Electric Locomotive Plant, Radiorele plant and Vinnytsia-based Crystal plant to the list of large privatization facilities to be sold in 2018.
According to a decree of the fund dated December 13 and published in the Vidomosti Pryvatyzatsii newspaper on Wednesday, these facilities and SOE Black Sea Navigation, Severodonetsk combined heat and power plant (CHPP), UstDunaivodshliakh will be prepared for privatization by the central office of the fund.
Regional departments of the funds will prepare Agrarian Fund, SOE for processing scram metal and metal waste Dnipro-VDM, coal company Krasnolymanska, Lysychanskvuhillia and 16 more coalmines and smaller facilities for sale.
SPF Head Vitaliy Trubraov said on his Facebook page that around 200 facilities from various sectors were placed to the list, while more than a half of them are not eligible for privatization in the Ukrainian legislation.
This concerns Artyomsol, Ukrspyrt, Ukrbud, Lviv Jewelry Plant, Metal Powder Plant, Ukrainian Danube Navigation and 13 ports, including the largest ports Yuzhny, Odesa, Chornomorsk and Mariupol.
Uber international technological company, the founder of the eponymous mobile attachment for calling taxies, has opened its headquarters for Central and Eastern Europe in Kyiv.
Oleksiy Stakh has been appointed Uber General Manager for the region.
“All employees from Central and Eastern Europe will move to Kyiv and will work here,” he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday.
Stakh said that the region includes Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Romania, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
According to the company’s press release, earlier Stakh was Uber General Manager in Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
According to him, in 2017, the service started working in six cities (Odesa, Lviv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Vinnytsia). The number of downloads of the application reached more than 1.7 million. The average time of delivery of a car (in Kyiv) was reduced to 6 minutes or less; the average rating of the driver in Ukraine fell from 4.8 points in the first half of 2017 to 4.797 points (as of December 20). The average passenger rating in Ukraine at the end of the year was 4.89 points.
Commenting on the increase of tariffs, Stakh said that this step allowed the service to attract more drivers, while the company did not notice the outflow of users.
According to Stakh, from December 20, 2017 Uber also launched a new service in Kyiv – uberVAN. In this category, cars with six seats will be available for users.
The cost of the trip with uberVAN will be calculated using the formula: UAH 45 for providing a car, UAH 5.8 per kilometer and UAH 1.8 per minute of travel. The minimum cost of the trip is UAH 80. For long distances after 20 km the tariff starts to be UAH 15 per km.
Mercedes-Benz Vito, Volkswagen Transporter, Mitsubishi Grandis and other cars will be involved in uberVAN. One of the conditions of connecting a car to the service is the presence of at least six passenger seats equipped with seat belts in the car.
He also said that in 2018, the company will focus on the development of the region, plans to double the staff in Ukraine.
In addition, it is planned to launch a number of Uber services, in particular, Uber Eats (a food delivery service), announced in July. At the same time, Stakh said that it is not yet planned to launch this service in the cities of the country with a population of less than 500,000 inhabitants.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said that Ukraine’s exports to Canada grew by 76%, and imports from Canada by 93% in 2017.
“This year alone our exports to Canada grew by 76%, and imports from Canada by 93%, almost two-fold from last year,” he said at a joint press conference with Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in Kyiv on Thursday.
Klimkin noted large potential of growth of mutual trade between the countries.
According to him, the agreement on a free trade area between the countries can be expanded to cover services and investments.
AVentures Capital, investing in innovative companies at initial phases, in the past 18 months (as of mid-December 2017) invested over $3.5 million in seven Ukrainian companies.
Managing partner of AVentures Andriy Kolodiuk told reporters on Thursday that average receipt of the fund starts from $500,000, and investment in companies during their expansion – up to $1.5 million.
Kolodiuk said that in 12 months the fund invested $500,000 each in Spinbackup and Bookimed (initial investment), around $500,000 in Teamfusion, invested its part in Petcube, the total volume of the round was $10 million (additional financing).
“Three more deals for $500,000-$1.5 million remain secret, including with two companies at the growth phase with over 100 employees. These are conditions of our contrast with them regarding confidentiality of some information,” Kolodiuk said.
He said that in most projects the fund was a first investor. The fund also helped actively attract financing from other investment funds (in particular, for Petcube AVentures helped to raise $8 million in 2017).
Kolodiuk said that the fund plans to close two or three more new deals in 2018 (in H1 2018), and active negotiations are being held with a dozen companies.
YURiA-PHARM pharmaceutical company is mulling the possibility of supplying antitubercular agents to Brazil, Director General of YURiA-PHARM LLC Dmytro Derkach has said.
Currently the company is waiting for the results of the inspection of its production sites conducted by the National Agency for Sanitary Supervision of Brazil (Agencia Nacional deVigilancia Sanitaria, ANVISA), he said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine.
“Today Brazil is interested in products made by YURiA-PHARM, in particular these are antitubercular agents,” Derkach said.
The company seeks to continue work on the introduction of new medicine production and the implementation of the strategy to enter international markets in 2018.
“Today, our products are present in over 25 countries. Our work is being done in 50 countries,” he said.
According to Business Credit company, in January-November 2017, YURiA-PHARM was in the top three leaders in pharmacy sales in kind and it is a dynamic leader in the high price cluster.
YURiA-PHARM is a member of the Association of Manufacturers of Medications of Ukraine.
