This season the agricultural holding “Ukrlandfarming” is planning to sow 300-330 thousand hectares, which is more than a year ago, due to deoccupation, the owner of the holding Oleg Bakhmatyuk said to the agency “Interfax-Ukraine” on Monday.
According to him, about 30 thousand hectares in Chernihiv, Sumy and part of the Nikolaev regions are in question because of mines.
“Kherson, for sure, we will not have time for sure,” he said, adding that Ukrlandfarming lands in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions are still under occupation.
At the same time, Bakhmatyuk recalled that last year, the occupiers disrupted the sowing season in Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions.
The owner also said that significant changes will be in the structure of cultivated land, in particular the area under corn will be smaller, because it requires more investment, in contrast to, for example, sunflower.
In addition, Bakhmatyuk said that inspection of the Chornobaevskaya poultry farm from the “Ukrlandfarming” holding “Avangard” in the Kherson region showed the unrealistic resumption of its work in current conditions “neither for technical reasons, nor for people.
According to him, in fact, only poultry houses “with iron” remained at the factory, while all the climate control cabinets, all the engines and machinery were stolen. “Everything that could be unscrewed and broken off was unscrewed and broken off,” the owner of Ukrlandfarming stated.
He pointed out that in such conditions “Avangard” plans to increase production at the factory in Kamyanets-Podilsky.
In February of this year, Marganets Mining and Processing Plant (MMPP, Dnipropetrovs’k region) reduced its production volumes, in particular due to threats of shelling by the Russian occupiers, difficult weather conditions and lack of staff.
According to the company, February was quite difficult for MMPP: the work of all departments and divisions was affected by the difficult mining and geological conditions in the mines of the plant, weather conditions that significantly affected the operation of the Hrushevsky open pit, as well as the threat of artillery shelling by the Russian army from the temporarily occupied Enerhodar.
Therefore, the total production of crude manganese ore at MMPP amounted to 34,783 thousand tons, which is 4,816.7 tons less than the February target (87.8% of the plan), as mines No. 9/10 and 14/15 failed to meet their targets.
The only underground mining shop that met its targets was mine No. 3/5, which produced 206 tons above the plan, totaling 4,006 thousand tons of ore (105.4% of the plan).
Mine No. 9/10 fulfilled the February plan by 69.8%, producing 9207.3 tons of ore.
“These figures were affected not only by poor mining and geological conditions, frequent stops for manual work, crossing of drifts, but also by a catastrophic shortage of staff, who were mostly on sick leave,” the company said in a statement.
In turn, Mine No. 9/10 managed to meet its sinking plan by 116.9%, meaning that the tunnellers of this shop sank 76 linear meters of mine workings, even though they were manually sinking in the 15th southwestern drift on the last working days of February, the company said.
At the same time, it is noted that at the mine No. 14/15, there was a certain destabilization of the moral climate of the shop workers due to staff shortages, frequent equipment breakdowns and emergency downtime. As a result, the ore production backlog in February amounted to 1,030 tons (95.4% of the plan), and since the beginning of 2023, the shop has fallen behind by 2,378 tons. In total, the division’s miners mined 21.570 thousand tons of ore in February.
In February, Hrushevsky open pit did not mine crude manganese ore and a number of other operations. At the same time, the plan for conveyor stripping was fulfilled by 136.7 thousand cubic meters (109.4%), as well as the plan for re-excavation of rock mass by the non-transportation method by 52 thousand cubic meters.
For its part, Pokrovsky GOK (PGOK, formerly Ordzhonikidze GOK, Dnipropetrovska oblast) reports that the company is preparing to launch operations in April, having been idle since December 1, 2022, and that its concentrators have been shut down since October 1, 2022 (they do not produce concentrate) due to a shortage of electricity.
PGOK is the largest open-pit manganese ore producer in Ukraine. Four Cypriot companies – Profetis Enterprises Limited, Exseed Investmens Limited, Clemente Enterprises Limited and Alexton Holdings Limited (all from Cyprus) – own 24.3024% of the company’s shares.
As reported, in 2022, MMPP reduced its production of manganese concentrate by 41.2% year-on-year to 324 thousand tons.
In 2021, MMPP produced 551.43 thousand tons of concentrate (at the level of 2020).
MMPP is developing the eastern part of the Nikopol manganese ore deposit (Hrushevsko-Basansky area). The plant comprises four operating mines, including one under construction, one open pit mine – Hrushevsky – and a concentrator.
According to the company’s data as of the end of June 2022, the largest shareholders of the company are Couttenmax Holdings Limited, Mosfilia Investments Limited and Humax Enterprises Limited, which own 23.89% of the company each, as well as Fianex Holdings Limited (all Cyprus), which owns 24% of the shares.
The authorized capital of MMPP is UAH 366.625 million, with a share price of UAH 0.25.
State-owned Oschadbank (Kyiv) has launched an online lending service for clients of the micro/small and medium business segment (MSME), said Natalia Butkova-Vitvitskaya, member of the bank’s Management Board responsible for MSME, at a forum dedicated to digital lending and finance – Digital lending 2023.
“Any client regardless of its legal form of ownership can get a preliminary decision in 24 hours, provide a list of documents and get a final decision through this service,” explained a representative of Oshchadbank.
Butkova-Vitvitskaya noted that the average micro-business credit check through the new service is 1.5 million UAH, small businesses – 5 million UAH, medium-sized – 10 million UAH.
“Prior to that four banks in the Ukrainian market offered similar financing, but only for one segment of customers – FLP. Today I can say that Oschadbank is destroying the “myth” and makes the first step to the legal entities”, – emphasized the member of the board.
Oschadbank was created in 1991, and its sole owner is the state.
According to NBU, on January 1, 2023 it ranked second by total assets (UAH 298.2 billion) among the 67 operating banks in the country.
Western European stock indexes are down sharply on Monday on the news about the bankruptcy of two banks in the U.S. and fears that the problems could spill over to the European banking industry.
The Stoxx Europe 600 composite index of the region’s largest companies fell 2.43% to 442.73 points by 11:25 a.m. The sub-index of the banking sector fell by almost 4%, writes Bloomberg.
The British FTSE 100 stock index was down 2.21%, the German DAX – 2.88%, the French CAC 40 – 2.59%. Italy’s FTSE MIB and Spain’s IBEX 35 lost 4.3% and 3.4%, respectively
As it was reported, the U.S. bank Silicon Valley Bank was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The FDIC will sell Silicon Valley Bank’s assets, which will allow it to make payments on uninsured deposits. The bank’s bankruptcy was the largest since the 2008 financial crisis.
Regulators also shut down a smaller New York-based Signature Bank, which was popular with cryptocurrency holders.
The Federal Reserve (Fed) responded by announcing a new mechanism for providing funds to financial institutions to make sure they “have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors.” The U.S. Treasury Department will allocate up to $25 billion from the stabilization fund to support the program.
The mechanism, called the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), provides loans of up to one year to banks, savings associations, credit unions and other financial institutions. The Fed would accept US Treasuries, federal agency bonds, mortgage bonds and a variety of other securities as collateral for these loans.
“Had it not been for regulatory support, the market would have opened much lower. However, many are selling stocks not because of a lack of confidence, but at the behest of risk management departments,” wrote Guillermo Hernandez Sampere, head of trading at MPPM GmbH. – We thought the system was more solid after (the bankruptcy – IF) of Lehman. We hope it will be a short-term storm, but it will not pass without consequences.”
Shares of Credit Suisse, the most troubled of Europe’s leading banks, fell nearly 10%, marking a new historic low. Commerzbank AG dropped 11.6%, making it the biggest loser on the Stoxx Europe 600 index.
HSBC Holdings Plc dropped 3.4% on the news that the bank is buying the British unit of Silicon Valley Bank for £1.
The key event for markets this week will be the release of February U.S. inflation data on Tuesday. Analysts polled by Trading Economics forecast that inflation in the U.S. slowed to 6% last month from 6.4% in January.
Sanofi (SPB: SNY) is down 1.4 percent. The French drugmaker reached an agreement to buy U.S. biopharmaceutical company Provention Bio Inc. for $2.9 billion.
Provention’s main asset is the drug TZIELD, the only U.S. regulatory-approved treatment designed to slow the onset of Stage 3 Type 1 diabetes.
The market value of Porsche AG drops 3.5 percent. The German luxury carmaker reported revenue growth of 13.6% last year, but the figure was worse than market forecasts.
The session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) elected Li Qiang as the new Premier of the State Council of China.
He was nominated by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who was re-elected for a third term the day before.
Li Qiang, born in 1959, was head of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the CPC from 2017-2022. From 2016-2017, he was head of the CPC Party Committee of Jiangsu Province, and from 2012-2016. – Governor of Zhejiang Province.
He succeeded Li Keqiang, who had led the Chinese government since 2013, as head of the cabinet.
The plenary session also elected deputy chairmen of China’s Central Military Council. They were Generals Zhang Yuxia and He Weidong.
Liu Jingguo will head the State Supervision Committee of the PRC, Zhang Jun was elected chairman of the Supreme People’s Supreme Court of the PRC, and Ying Yong was elected chairman of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate.
At a plenary session on Sunday, deputies elected deputy prime ministers of the State Council of the PRC and the new composition of the cabinet.
Bali authorities have asked the Indonesian government to cancel visas on arrival for Russians and Ukrainians as they try to seek work in the country by entering on tourist visas, The Jakarta Post newspaper reported, citing provincial governor Wayan Koster.
“I have written a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice asking them to cancel visa privileges for Russians and Ukrainians,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.
In Indonesia, it is forbidden to work and create businesses for foreign nationals visiting the country as tourists.
As the newspaper notes, citizens of Russia and Ukraine abuse tourist visas and try to find a job or start a business in the country. In March, at least four Russian citizens were deported for visa violations, and immigration authorities repeatedly warned foreigners in Bali against working on tourist visas.
