Knauf Gypsum Rock LLC has won the auction for a 20-year special permit for gypsum mining at the Skoviatynske deposit in Ternopil region, according to the results of the bidding on Prozorro.Sale.
Two companies participated in the auction held on Thursday, January 16, by the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine, with a starting price of UAH 119 million 608 thousand 594.06 excluding VAT. The winner, Knauf Gypsum Skala LLC, offered UAH 121.05 million excluding VAT for the license, while the second bidder, Kamianets-Podilskyi Gipsovik JSC, offered UAH 120.55 million.
The 115-hectare Skoviatynske deposit is located 1-2 km from the village of Shyshkivtsi in Chortkiv (formerly Borshchiv) district and is the largest in Ternopil region with gypsum reserves of 43.9 million tons. Knauf has been developing the Shyshkovets deposit adjacent to Skoviatynske since 2006. As of 2021, the Shyshkovetsky deposit covered an area of 41 hectares and had reserves of over 11.4 million tons of gypsum.
Knauf is a leading global manufacturer of gypsum and building materials.
Currently, Knauf has an operating plant in Kyiv, which produces about 25 million square meters of gypsum board and 200 thousand tons of dry mixes. Previously, Knauf also owned a plant in Soledar (Donetsk region), which was destroyed by the occupiers. The company took its employees out and employed them at the Kyiv plant, which employs 425 people in total.
As reported, the German company Knauf will build a plant for the production of drywall and dry building mixtures in Borshchiv (Ternopil region), with investments in the project amounting to EUR 150 million, with a design capacity of 30 million square meters of drywall and 320 thousand tons of dry mixtures.
According to Opendatabot, at the end of 2023, the Knauf plant in Kyiv (Knauf Gypsum Kyiv LLC) increased its net income by 65% to UAH 3.53 billion, and net profit by 2.6 times to UAH 1 billion.
In 2024, the enterprises of Astarta, the largest sugar producer in Ukraine, paid UAH 2.25 billion in taxes and fees to the budgets of all levels and, according to the State Tax Service, were included in the list of taxpayers with a high level of voluntary compliance with tax legislation – the White Business Club.
According to the agricultural holding’s press service on its Facebook page, more than UAH 1.47 billion of this amount was paid to local budgets of territorial communities in Poltava, Khmelnytsky, Vinnytsia, Ternopil, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv and Kharkiv regions of Ukraine. The state budget received over UAH 776 million.
“During the full-scale war, Astarta has transferred UAH 6.1 billion to the budgets of all levels and we will continue to do so. Conscientious payment of taxes in wartime is not just a duty, it is also a demonstration of self-recharge and unity of Ukrainian business, which helps to accelerate Ukraine’s victory and its economic recovery afterwards,” said Astarta’s founder and CEO Victor Ivanchyk.
“Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding company operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It comprises six sugar factories, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of 220 thousand hectares and dairy farms with 22 thousand cattle, an oil extraction plant in Globyno (Poltava region), seven elevators and a biogas complex.
In 2023, the agricultural holding reduced its net profit by 5.0% to EUR 61.9 million, and its EBITDA decreased by 6.1% to EUR 145.77 million, while revenue increased by 21.3% to EUR 618.93 million.
Revenue from the privatization of state property in 2024 increased 3.1 times (by UAH 6.75 billion) compared to 2023, to UAH 9.9 billion, according to the website of the State Property Fund (SPF) of Ukraine. According to the website, in 2015, privatization revenues amounted to UAH 0.2 billion, in 2016 – UAH 0.2 billion, in 2017 – UAH 3.4 billion, in 2018 – UAH 0.3 billion, in 2019 – UAH 0.5 billion, in 2020 – UAH 2.2 billion, in 2021 – UAH 5.1 billion, in 2022 – UAH 1.7 billion, in 2023 – UAH 3.15 billion.
“In 2024, the SPFU managed to set a new record for privatization proceeds,” the agency stated.
In total, last year the Ukrainian budget received UAH 11.1 billion from privatization, in addition to UAH 9.9 billion in revenues, another UAH 1.2 billion was VAT.
At the same time, the sale of small-scale privatization objects brought in almost UAH 3.5 billion, with the most expensive lot being the Kyiv Kozatsky Hotel (UAH 0.4 billion), and two large-scale privatization assets – the capital’s Hotel Ukraine and the United Mining and Chemical Company – provided UAH 6.45 billion in budget revenues.
In 2024, the SPF also began to auction state assets with no book value or zero book value at a starting price of UAH 1. These auctions were highly competitive.
“We offer the market a wide range of objects: from large facilities to single property complexes for business development and real estate. Thanks to this, everyone can find options for investment. Over the past decade, privatization has become more transparent and its results have improved significantly,” said Ivanna Smachylo, acting head of the SPF.
Israel has sent several hundred portable EcoFlow charging stations to Ukraine to help Ukrainians get through the winter and cope with electricity problems, the press service of the Israeli Embassy in Ukraine reported on Thursday.
“The Israeli Embassy in Kyiv and MASHAV (the Center for International Cooperation of the Israeli Foreign Ministry) will hand over portable stations to families in need in different regions of Ukraine,” the embassy’s press service said in a statement. The State of Israel recognized Ukraine’s independence on December 25, 1991. On December 26, 1991, diplomatic relations between Ukraine and the State of Israel were established. In 1993, the Embassy of the State of Israel was opened in Kyiv. Since 2021, Michael Brodsky has been the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Israel to Ukraine.
In 2024, Ukraine processed 31.963 thousand tons of grapes into wine materials, which is 36.5% less than in 2023, the State Statistics Service reported. According to these data, last year wine producers processed 9.771 thousand tons of grapes that they grew themselves and 22.192 thousand tons of purchased grapes, which amounted to 30.6% and 69.4%, respectively.
The most popular varieties among processors in the analyzed period were Aligote, which was processed 5220.3 tons (16.3% of the total volume of processed raw materials), Chardonnay – 4015.9 tons (12.6%), Cabernet Sauvignon – 2742 tons (8, 6%), Rkatsiteli – 2179.6 tons (6.8%), Muscat – 1973.5 tons (6.2%), Riesling – 1792.6 tons (5.6%), Saperavi – 1595.4 tons (5%), Pinot – 1415.1 tons (4.4%), Sauvignon and Odesa Black – 1080 tons (3.4%), and others.
According to the published data, grape processing in the 2024 season decreased compared to 2023 in the varietal range as follows: “Aligote – by 30%, Chardonnay – by 10.5%, Cabernet Sauvignon – by 49.2%, Rkatsiteli – 35.6%, Muscat – 61.2%, Riesling – 17%, Saperavi – 38.8%, Pinot – 50.9%, Sauvignon and Odesa Black – 55.6% and 48%, respectively.
As a result, in the 2024 season, the production of wine materials decreased by 38.1%, to 2.391 million dal of wine materials, compared to 3.861 million dal in 2023.
At the same time, 1.618 million dal of wine materials were used for the production of table wines, or 67.7%, champagne and sparkling wines – 608.8 thousand dal (25.5%), cognacs – 91.1 thousand dal (3.8%).
The State Statistics Service clarified that the data published excludes the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, part of the temporarily occupied territories in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and part of the territories where military operations are underway.
IKEA Serbia has submitted a request to the Belgrade Secretariat for Environmental Protection to decide on the need for an environmental impact assessment for the expansion and reconstruction project of the IKEA-istok department store in Belgrade, Biznis.rs reported today.
The project involves the reconstruction and expansion of more than 6,000 square meters of the department store on Astrid Lindgren Street, and the deadline for public review and submission of conclusions on the request is January 31.
The reconstruction and expansion is planned to be carried out in one stage, while maintaining existing infrastructure connections and without increasing the capacity.
The request states that the existing wastewater treatment technology and the existing wastewater separator from the transport areas will be preserved.
“Since the existing purpose of the facility is maintained, which is not a source of pollution, and given the latest environmental standards that the investor IKEA applies to all its projects, no pollution and inconvenience is expected in the Ikea department store complex in Belgrade,” the request for a decision on the need to conduct an environmental impact assessment reads.
It was also noted that pollution can be considered stationary traffic, which, according to their assessment, does not have a significant spatial dispersion or duration.
IKEA said that during the expansion, the geomechanical and hydrogeological characteristics of the soil will be taken into account based on detailed observations and analyzes.
“The implementation of the planned project will not lead to pollution that is significant for the area where it will be located. The possibility of an accident is minimized through the implementation of appropriate preventive and rapid response measures,” the request says.
The company believes that the project will not have a negative impact on the environment, so there is no need to prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment.
Source: http://relocation.com.ua/ikea-rozshyriuie-svoiu-prysutnist-u-serbii/
