TAS Agro agrarian group will reduce sowing areas of oilseeds, expand the grain group and start growing sugar beet in season 2023, the company’s press service said.
“Despite the late start of the sowing season caused by weather conditions, all works will be performed in optimal agronomic terms. Modern technological complexes, which increase the accuracy of seeding and increase the productivity of works, are involved in the sowing campaign”, – stated in the press release.
It is specified that the spring sowing campaign in Kirovograd region started with sunflower sowing.
“TAS Agro” is planning to sow 23.3 thousand hectares of corn, 16.1 thousand hectares of sunflower and 11.5 thousand hectares of soybeans in 2023. “Compared to the last year we are going to reduce the area of oil crops and increase the area of grain group. Sowing area in the company as a whole has not changed, but because of food security and market situation this season sugar beet was added to the structure of crops”, – stressed the press service.
After the end of the sowing season the holding will make additional application of nitrogen fertilizers. The company intends to change the technology of plant nutrition, for which the yield of crops in each field over the past five years has been analyzed. According to the data received, the fields were divided into categories, according to which the yield and nutrition system will be planned. “We will be able to not just save money, but increase the efficiency of the money invested in fertilizers,” the company notes.
Before the war TAS Agro worked 83 thousand hectares in Vinnitsa, Kiev, Kirovograd, Chernigov, Nikolaev, Sumy, Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions, was engaged in dairy farming (up to 5.5 thousand cattle), owned six elevators with simultaneous storage capacity of 250 tons.
TAS Group was founded in 1998. The sphere of its business interests covers the financial sector (banking and insurance segments) and pharmacy, as well as industry, real estate, venture projects.
The founder of TAS is Sergiy Tigipko.
Net sales of dollars by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) jumped to $560.1m this week from $242.9m a week earlier, the highest in eight weeks.
According to the NBU website, from April 17 to April 21, 2023, the purchase of foreign currency was again absent.
On the cash market the dollar went up during the week by 0.35 UAH – to about 38.15 UAH/$1.
Market participants connect the change of tendency to the concerns, caused by temporary ban on import of Ukrainian agro-products to Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, and also unstable operation of grain corridor, which questions its prolongation after May 18.
Since the beginning of the year, the NBU bought $62.3 million at the market, while it sold $8 billion 172.7 million.
As reported, the volume of interventions of the National Bank in March decreased to $1.67 billion from $2.43 billion in February and $3.08 billion and $3.16 billion in January and December.
Due to significant inflows of external financing, international reserves of Ukraine in March increased by 10%, or $3 billion – to $31.88 billion.
The Japanese government has announced a $471 million contribution to the World Bank’s Ukraine Recovery, Rehabilitation and Reform Trust Fund (URTF).
“This contribution is part of a $5.5 billion pledge Japan made in February to help rebuild destroyed infrastructure and support the people of Ukraine in rebuilding. Of the pledged amount, $5 billion is loan coverage that will support World Bank loans to Ukraine next year,” the WB said in a release Saturday.
According to Japanese Deputy Finance Minister Kentaro Ogata, Japan expects its contributions to be used effectively to meet Ukraine’s urgent critical infrastructure repair needs.
The URTF is a multi-donor fund that supports World Bank emergency operations in Ukraine in key sectors including transportation, health and energy. These projects reflect the country’s emergency assistance needs outlined in an updated Rapid Damage and Recovery Needs Assessment (RDNA) published last month. The projects are designed to be adaptable to what’s happening on the ground, while making a quick impact.
This grant contribution more than doubles URTF funds, WB points out. Total grant resources for urgent repairs to energy infrastructure, roads, bridges, housing, schools, and hospitals now total more than $850 million. URTF now supports the Energy Recovery and Winterization Preparation Project, the Rehabilitation of Essential Logistics Infrastructure and Networking (RELINC) and the Health System Strengthening and Life Preservation (HEAL) Project.
In the new RDNA, the World Bank estimated that Ukraine will face an $11 billion funding gap in 2023 to cover critical economic and capital spending.
The URTF was established in December 2022. The fund helps Ukraine plan and implement a recovery, sustainable recovery and reform program. Using a framework approach, URTF ensures that the Ukrainian authorities can effectively and extensively leverage multiple sources of funding.
URTF is strategically guided by a Partnership Council. It is co-chaired by the World Bank Group and the Government of Ukraine and includes development partners. URTF participants include Austria, Canada, Iceland, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. The Program Management Team is responsible for the day-to-day management of URTF participants’ funds.
Investment group Dragon Capital intends to buy Parfums LLC (Kiev), an online perfume store Parfums (parfums.ua), whose revenue in 2022, according to the resource opendatabot, fell to 2.4 million UAH from 206.8 million UAH a year earlier.
According to information from the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) on Friday, it gave the Cypriot Dragon Capital Investments Limited permission to buy more than 50% in the Cypriot PFG Corporation Limited, which owns 100% in Parfums LLC and the beneficiary of which is related to Dragon Capital.
At the same time, the AMCU notified that it had granted the same permission to Cyprus-based Redinfine Consultants Limited.
Dragon Capital investment company has not yet commented on this information to Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
According to opendatabot, the beneficiary of PFG Corporation Limited is a Czech citizen Suchy Ivo, a member of the supervisory board of Dragon Capital-owned Unex Bank, representing the shareholder. It is also indicated that for the past five years he was executive director of Dragon Capital (Cyprus) Limited and Dragon Capital s.r.o.
According to opendatabot, previously among the beneficiaries of PFG Corruption Limited was Andrey Logvin – the beneficiary of a major player in Ukrainian Internet retail Kasta Group.
At the beginning of 2022, the share capital of Parfums LLC was increased from 133.72 million UAH to 177.80 million UAH. Assets of the company in the past year decreased from 106.4 million UAH to 81.5 million UAH, liabilities – from 167.8 million UAH to 98.5 million UAH.
The site of the online store indicates that the project has been operating since 2008.
Dragon Capital – one of the largest investment groups in Ukraine in the field of investment and financial services. It provides a full range of investment banking and brokerage services, private equity and asset management for institutional, corporate and private clients.
The company was founded in 2000 in Kiev, the beneficiary is the founder and head Czech citizen Tomas Fiala.
In June 2022, specialized resource RAU reported that as a result of an asset swap the largest player in the market of perfumes and cosmetics in Ukraine MakeUp will receive from Dragon Capital management of online store parfums.ua, but will give it an online store with children’s products panama.ua to the already existing Dragon Capital pampik.com.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is lending EUR10.6 million to the municipal enterprise (CE) Electrotrans (Khmelnitsky) to finance the purchase of new trolleybuses, as well as equipment for maintenance and diagnostics, according to a press release from the bank.
The EBRD loan is part of a financing package that also includes investment grants from the EU Neighbourhood Investment Platform of up to EUR2.75 million and up to EUR1.7 million from the EBRD’s Special Crisis Response Fund, which receives a contribution from the U.S. government, according to the statement Friday.
The loan and grants will be used to purchase new trolleybuses with remote monitoring systems, spare parts and service equipment.
In turn, the city will cover the cost of installing surveillance cameras inside the trolleybuses and upgrading the trolleybus stops, traction substations and trolleybus depot in the amount of EUR1.5 million.
The press release reminds us that the project is part of the EBRD’s Green Cities program, which Khmelnitsky joined in 2019. The first project, signed in October 2020, concerned improving solid waste management.
“Both projects are extremely important to the residents of Khmelnitsky: the ongoing project – to improve solid waste management – and the project to purchase new trolleybuses. We are glad that we can implement them exactly with the EBRD, our long-term partner, despite the war caused by Russian aggression,” the press service quotes Khmelnitsky Mayor Alexander Simchyshyn, who represented the city in Warsaw at the signing of the agreement with EBRD Managing Director for Sustainable Infrastructure Development Nandita Parshad.
As reported, earlier Simchyshyn noted that up to 45 low-floor trolleybuses are planned to buy with EBRD funds and grants, but at the same time, their number will depend on the cost of trolleybuses, which has increased.
The EBRD press service states that after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Khmelnytskyi faced a large flow of internally displaced persons (IDPs), which put a strain on city services.
The EBRD resumed work with Khmelnitsky in June, adding an IDP needs assessment to the Green City Action Plan, with funding provided by the Swedish government.
The EBRD’s Green Cities program was founded in 2016. Since then, it has helped more than 50 cities on three continents, with more than EUR5 billion spent on its support.
In Ukraine, Lviv, Kiev, Kryvyi Rig, Dnipro, Khmelnitsky joined it, among others.
As it was reported, the EBRD together with donors undertook to provide financing in the amount of EUR3 billion for support of functioning of business and economy in Ukraine in 2022-2023. In 2022, the bank allocated EUR1.7bn to support Ukraine and attracted EUR200m from partner financial institutions.
On April 24, Oksiy Stolyarov, the head of the board of Oksiy Bank (Lviv), will resign at his own request. Alexander Skvortsov, the deputy head of the board, was appointed Acting CEO on April 25.
According to the bank’s message in the NCCFM disclosure system, the decision was made by the bank’s Supervisory Board on April 19.
Skvortsov appointed as acting chief executive officer until the date of assumption of office by the head of the board agreed by the National Bank, is indicated in the information.
It is specified that Skvortsov till November, 2021 was at first the deputy and then the head of department of information security of bank. Before that, he was manager of information security of LLC “Consumer Center”, director of the department of information security of LLC “NovaPay”, head of the information security service of the bank “Avangard”.
Stolyarov has chaired the board since April 25, 2022.
Oxy Bank (formerly Gals Bank) was registered in 1991. According to the NBU, its largest shareholders are Oleg Balyash (50.4467%) and his wife Oksana Balyash (25%), as well as Igor Fisun (9.95%).
According to the National Bank of Ukraine, as of March 1, 2023, Oksi Bank ranked 59th by total assets (UAH 740.5 million) among 65 operating banks in the country.
