In the Southeast Asian region, Ukrainians have the most positive attitude toward Japan and South Korea. This is evidenced by the results of a joint study by the Experts Club think tank and the Active Group research company, presented at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.
“Our research has shown that in East Asia, Ukrainians are most supportive of Japan and South Korea. Attitudes toward these countries largely depend on their support for Ukraine after the war began. In the Caucasus region, a positive attitude toward Georgia remains. Also, more than 50% of Ukrainians have a positive attitude towards Kazakhstan. The lowest level of support was recorded for such countries as the DPRK, Syria, and Iraq,” said Oleksandr Poznyi, director of the Active Group research company.
According to the expert, the negative attitude of Ukrainians toward China is also quite eloquent.
“Only 4% of citizens have a positive attitude toward China, 16.7% have a mostly positive attitude, 58.8% have a negative attitude, and 20% have not decided. Currently, China’s position is not entirely unambiguous in relation to Ukraine, which is reflected in the attitude of Ukrainians,” Mr. Poznyi emphasized.
In his turn, Maksym Urakin, founder of the Experts Club think tank and deputy director of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, presented an analysis of Ukraine’s foreign trade with a number of Asian countries based on data from the State Customs Service for 2023.
“The largest market for Ukrainian goods in Asia is China – more than $2 billion. India ranks second, followed by Kazakhstan, Georgia, Iraq, and Indonesia. As for imports, China is also the largest importer to Ukraine, with more than $10 billion. It is followed by India, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. In terms of total trade between Ukraine and these countries, China is also the leader, with almost $13 billion. India ranks second – 2.5 billion, followed by Japan – almost a billion,” said Urakin.
According to him, the analysis of economic data shows that Ukraine has significant trade ties with the countries of the Middle East and East Asia. At the same time, China remains one of our country’s largest trading partners in terms of both exports and imports.
“The problem of trade deficit remains, as Ukraine spends a lot of money on imports, while earning little on exports. This is a real problem. In 2023, Ukraine’s trade deficit with all countries is over $27 billion. The deficit with China is $8 billion. Among the countries represented today, we have a positive balance only with Iraq – almost $200 million in favor of Ukraine, Georgia – $100 million, and Armenia – $54 million,” Urakin added.
Chairman of the Ukrainian-Arab Business Council, member of the Council of National Communities of Ukraine Dr. Emad Abu Alrub emphasized that the importance of Ukraine’s relations with the countries of Asia and the Arab world cannot be overestimated, and Ukraine is currently taking important steps to develop these relations.
“Ukraine has significant opportunities in the markets of Arab countries, which have a total population of over 550 million. Arab countries are a permanent market for our goods. After 2014, new markets opened up for our country, especially in Asia. The Ukrainian Arab Business Council is actively working to develop these relations. We need to create a strategic plan to improve relations at the level of economy, politics, and culture. We have significant chances for success, but we need better communication and marketing,” emphasized Dr. Abu Alrub.
He also added that Saudi Arabia is interested in cooperating with Ukraine by investing not only in trade, but also in agriculture, technology, and other projects. Other interesting countries are the UAE, Qatar, and Egypt. All of them also have great potential for investment in Ukraine.
In conclusion, Maksym Urakin called on foreign embassies to be more active in establishing communication with Ukrainian society.
“If you can, please provide information to journalists about what you are doing here, how you are helping in the humanitarian sphere. Through these ties, we will deepen our cooperation, because the way Ukrainian citizens view your countries also depends on your work,” he concluded.
ACTIVE_GROUP, ALEXANDER_POZNYI, EAST_ASIA, ECONOMY, EXPERTS_CLUB, MAXIM_URAKIN, MIDDLE_EAST, SOCIOLOGY, SURVEY
The Filatov Institute of Eye Diseases and Tissue Therapy of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine (Odesa) has been receiving humanitarian aid for the second year in a row – a drug for the treatment of intraocular malignant tumors in children from Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Limited.
As the Institute’s clinic told Interfax-Ukraine, the drug is used to treat the disease according to the method of combined polychemotherapy developed by its doctors. It involves injecting the drug directly into the tumor in combination with general polychemotherapy. The use of this method makes it possible to preserve the eye affected by the tumor and even vision in 80% of cases.
The drug melphalan, manufactured by Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Limited, is used as an intraocular injection agent.
“Unfortunately, in recent years it has been impossible to purchase melphalan for injection in Ukraine. The Institute has taken active steps to obtain the drug, and for the second year we have been receiving the drug directly from the company as charitable assistance,” the Institute said.
It is noted that the availability of these medicines enables young patients to receive the necessary treatment, which not only saves their lives, avoids removing the tumor along with the eye, but also preserves their vision.
“The Institute expresses its deep gratitude to Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Limited, Senior Executive Director of Aspen Group Mr. Stavros Nikolau, Head of the Patronage Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Olga Nikitchenko and Ambassador of Ukraine to South Africa Lyubov Abravitova for their assistance in obtaining the drug,” the clinic emphasized.
Retinoblastoma is an intraocular highly malignant retinal tumor that develops mostly in children during the first two years of life and accounts for 89.3-98.2% of all intraocular tumors in children. The incidence of retinoblastoma in the world is currently one case per 10-15 thousand newborns. Due to the asymptomatic course of the disease, up to 85-86% of children with this diagnosis are admitted to clinics with advanced retinoblastoma. Previously, and still in many clinics, the only way to save a child’s life was to remove the tumor along with the eye.
In Ukraine, retinoblastoma is treated at the Department of Pediatric Ophthalmopathology at the Filatov Institute of Eye Diseases and Tissue Therapy. In recent years, the clinic has treated about 300 children with retinoblastoma aged three months to eight years. Each patient receives from 3 to 20 injections depending on the stage of the disease.
A representative office of the French Development Agency will open in Kyiv in July 2024, the French Embassy in Ukraine reported on Thursday.
“In addition to the two loans being implemented in support of Ukraine in 2022, we will now finance activities related to the sustainable development of Ukraine,” the statement said.
In January-May this year, Ukraine reduced pig iron exports in physical terms by 19.6% year-on-year to 507.106 thousand tons.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service (SCS) on Thursday, pig iron exports in monetary terms decreased by 22.3% to $189.600 million during the period.
At the same time, exports were carried out mainly to the United States (78.55% of supplies in monetary terms), Italy (6.49%) and Poland (5.77%).
In the first five months of the year, the country imported 15 tons of pig iron worth $35 thousand from Germany (there were no imports in January, March and May), while in the same period in 2023 it imported 37 tons of pig iron worth $52 thousand.
As reported, in 2023, Ukraine reduced exports of processed pig iron in physical terms by 5.8% compared to 2022 – to 1 million 248.512 thousand tons, while exports in monetary terms decreased by 26.2% to $ 471.467 million. Deliveries were made mainly to Poland (51.91% of supplies in monetary terms), Spain (21.41%) and the United States (13.15%).
In 2023, Ukraine imported 154 tons of pig iron worth $156 thousand from Germany (42.31%), Brazil (41.67%) and Poland (16.03%), compared to 40 tons of pig iron worth $23 thousand in 2022.
In 2022, Ukraine reduced exports of processed pig iron by 59% in physical terms compared to the previous year to 1 million 325.275 thousand tons, and by 61.1% in monetary terms to $638.774 million.
In 2022, Ukraine imported 40 tons of pig iron worth $23 thousand, while in 2021 it imported 185 tons of pig iron worth $226 thousand. Exports were mainly to the United States (38.47% of supplies in monetary terms), Poland (32.91%) and Turkey (8.12%), while imports were made from Germany (100%).
How many Ukrainians have not returned home since the beginning of the year
The State Border Guard Service recorded more than 7.8 million border crossings by Ukrainians in the first 4 months of 2024. This is significantly less than in the same period last year. About 69 thousand people left and did not return.
Ukrainians crossed the border 7.8 million times in the first months of this year. Overall, citizens began to travel abroad 10% less often.
Almost 69 thousand citizens – 1.5% of the total number of people who left the country – have not returned to the country since the beginning of the year. In April, for the first time since the beginning of the year, more citizens returned home than left – by 56 thousand. Overall, this year the number of those who have not returned has slightly increased compared to last year – 62 thousand Ukrainians did not return.
For comparison, 14.1 million Ukrainians left Ukraine last year. Of these, only 142 thousand remained abroad. This is 15 times less than in the first year of the full-scale war.
It is worth noting that the difference between those who left and entered Ukraine does not give an accurate understanding of the number of people who emigrated.
https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/emigration-trend-2024-4
On June 12, Kyiv hosted the business forum “Grain. Pigs. Meat – 2024”, which brought together representatives of agribusiness, processing, supply, finance and investment, government agencies, experts and bloggers. We are grateful to the Armed Forces of Ukraine for this opportunity!
We are grateful to the guests, participants, partners and sponsors of the Forum from Kyiv, Chernihiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Lviv, Kharkiv and other cities and towns of Ukraine who attended the business forum “Grain. Pigs. Meat – 2024” and joined the discussion of crucial issues that help businesses move from confrontation to cooperation, provide new opportunities for scaling and development of entire sectors of the Ukrainian economy!
The Forum highlighted the issues that hinder the development of the Grain – Pigs – Meat value chain, held active discussions, proposed solutions and provided effective tools.
Forum participants learned about:
– The importance of developing industries that create added value in Ukraine’s economy in times of war, with raw material exports blocked, expensive logistics, and a cheap price for the raw material itself and its minimal added value
– The possibility of replacing grain exports with exports of meat and meat products, which are high value-added goods.
– The state and prospects of the pig and meat industry in Ukraine during and after the war.
– The next stages of implementation of the New Pig Breeding of Ukraine program, which envisages a fourfold increase in the number of pigs, from 6 to 12 billion euros of added value.
– Possibility of eradicating ASF in Ukraine through vaccine prevention, lifting the stamping out in industrial pig production and unblocking pork exports.
– Establishment of an international consortium to support ASF control measures in Ukraine and Europe.
– Adaptation of pig production in Ukraine to a possible decline in pig prices due to overproduction in the absence of pork exports.
– Investment opportunities for the meat industry, pig production and farmers.
– Newest and digital technologies for pig production and meat processing.
– The Family Pig Farms social project, which will help war veterans start a successful pig farming business.
– Opportunities to obtain additional funding, grants, and investment.
– Training of highly qualified personnel for meat industry enterprises.
– Implementation of a mechanism for cooperation between producers and processors to protect profitability throughout the chain.
We call for cooperation for the development of Ukraine and believe in Ukrainians who, even in the most difficult times, do their best to rebuild our country. Only together we can make the Ukrainian agro-industrial complex stronger, more sustainable and competitive in the global market!
