Business news from Ukraine

KYIV. Feb 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The adoption of the bill on electronic trust services by the Verkhovna Rada would allow citizens to use smartphones to receive services from public agencies, while business will be able to take part in tenders of the European Union (EU) countries, Ukrainian Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko has said.
“For ordinary Ukrainian this means that using own smartphone each of us will be able to register a company, sign any contract, send an inquiry and receive any information about operations of a public agency. All active operations of small and medium sized enterprises can be carried out in communications with public agencies using one small smartphone, without paper and talks with red tapists,” he said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine in Kyiv on Monday.
Petrenko said that the Verkhovna Rada earlier failed to pass the bill at second reading and he urged parliamentarians to adopt the bill soon.
“The adoption of the bill allows Ukrainian business to take part in tenders in the EU,” the minister said.
He said that tenders in the EU are held in the electronic form, and companies are identified using MobileID and BankID.
He said that by the end of 2017 many mobile operators are ready to introduce the identification system using MobileID, while banks are using BankID. The approval of the bill would allow introducing these systems to the operation of pubic agencies.
The minister promised that the Justice Ministry will be the first agency which will execute the bill after its adoption.
First Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Maskym Nefyodov said that the Economic Development and Trade Ministry is ready to start a friendly contest with the Justice Ministry in the issue of the quick introduction of the bill.

KYIV. Feb 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Starting from 2017 farmers will receive partial compensation of the cost of agricultural machinery in the amount of 15% of its cost via banks if the production localization for the machinery in Ukraine exceeds 35%.

Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers approved the relevant resolution in Kyiv on Tuesday.

“We want to achieve that the localization of Ukrainian agricultural machinery manufacturers by 2020 reaches 60%,” Agricultural Policy and Food Minister of Ukraine Taras Kutoviy said presenting the documents at a government meeting on Tuesday.

He said that the decisions made foresee the increase of localization to 45% in 2018, to 55% in 2019 and to 60% in 2020.

The minister recalled that the legislation passed at the end of 2016 allocates 0.1% of the cost of gross agricultural products for this partial compensation, or around UAH 550 million.

He said that next year the sum will be increased to 0.15% or around UAH 900 million, and will reach 0.2% in 2019, exceeding UAH 1 billion.

“The volume of agricultural engineering goods will be over UAH 4 billion,” Kutoviy said. He added that deterioration of agricultural machinery at farms today is some 85%, and its pace exceeds the upgrade pace.

KYIV. Feb 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – A bill to support fishing industry could be drawn up by the State Fish Agency jointly with the Reforms Delivery Office by the end of March 2017.

The agency said that the bill will envisage the creation of the fishing industry fund that would accumulate funds from the fishing industry and distribute them using transparent rules.

“The fund is to ensure the use of the funds received in the sector for targeted development: fish planting, soil reclamation and bio resources protection programs. Support of fishing farmers should be a separate direction,” State Fish Agency Head Yarema Kovaliv said.

He said that reports of the fund should be updated regularly and published online.

The agency said that in 2016 only UAH 3.8 million fines were imposed for violation of fishing rules. Funds from compensation for industrial fish catch and dredging works were also received.

“According to Ukrainian law, the collected funds are sent to the budget and often they are sent to the programs not linked to fishing industry. The sector does not have money for fish planting and soil reclamation programs. We propose a model that would effectively distribute the funds for the needs of the sector and support stable fish stocks,” Kovaliv said.

Reforms Delivery Office expert Yehor Luchinkin said that practice of specialized funds when the money are sent to fishing industry development programs is popular in Europe. There is the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) with a total budget of EUR 8.6 billion. The funds are distributed to local programs of EU member countries and EU countries also have local funds.

KYIV. Feb 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has set up a company in Ukraine to manage its own wagons, Bank Senior Adviser Anton Usov has told Interfax-Ukraine.
“This is a specially created company CREA I UA LLC. It will carry out management. The bank will consider various options for the further development of events: sale of cars to a strategist, for example,” he said.
Earlier EBRD Senior Banker Mark Magaletsky said in an interview with the Center of Transport Strategies that Interleasinginvest had not fulfilled its obligations on the EBRD loan service for financing the purchase of wagons and as a result the EBRD left the project with the assets that were pledged – freight wagons.
“Currently we already reach the finish line and have received the title of ownership of these cars. A subsidiary has been established, which is the holder of the wagons, and the cars will work directly on us. Some 2,387 cars – with this park we actually entered the top five largest private owners of wagons in Ukraine,” Magaletsky said.

DNIPRO. Feb 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine’s biggest industrial park Pavlohrad has opened in Dnipropetrovsk region, the press service of the regional state administration has said.

“An investment center is running in the region. Here each investor is provided with a personal adviser, who accompanies his project from idea to realization. Now we are opening Pavlohrad industrial park. This is a convenient platform for the creation of new production and an advantageous offer for investment,” Head of Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration Valentyn Reznichenko said.

According to him, this park is located on 250 hectares of land and is designed to create new industries and investments. The industrial park will allow creating about 5,000 new jobs, attracting more than $370 million in the development of industry in the region and getting additional revenues to the budgets of all levels.

Pavlohrad industrial park is located in Pavlohrad district of Dnipropetrovsk region. Nearby is the international highway, Dnipro has a river port and an airport. Some 440,000 companies and organizations, which account for almost 50% of the profits of all enterprises in the country, are located within a radius of 300 km from the park.