Poland’s Pronar, a major manufacturer of agricultural and municipal equipment, is patenting a special machine for demining fields and construction sites, planning to start mass production for Ukraine’s needs in 2024, said Radoslaw Biletsky, Pronar’s director of trade and marketing.
“A team of 150 engineers is working very closely with partners in Ukraine to overcome the existing challenges – mined agricultural fields… so that agricultural machinery has special integrated systems that could solve these problems,” he said at the forum “Ukraine-Poland. Machinery and Equipment Sector” forum under the patronage of the Polish Investment and Trade Agency and the Polish Union of Employers in the Construction Sector in Siemiatycze, Poland.
Biletsky declined to give more precise specifications of the machine until the patenting procedure is completed, noting that the vehicle will be automated, can be controlled remotely, and can be used in fields, construction sites, and other open areas.
According to the Sales and Marketing Director, this is another product line that Pronar has designed specifically for use in Ukraine.
“The newest line is shredding machines. They allow us to bring to zero those places where the business will continue to develop in order to prepare locations for new construction,” said Biletsky.
He added that Pronar also exports snowplows, spreaders and sweepers to Ukraine, which help to ensure transportation.
Earlier, the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine indicated that there are 30 demining machines in the country, of which 25 are in constant operation.
Pronar is a Polish manufacturing company that has been operating since 1988. According to its website, it has nine production sites, its own research and development center, airport and exhibition center. According to the company, it holds a significant position in Europe in the production of agricultural, municipal and processing machinery, crushers and disc wheels for low-speed machines and components, supplying products to more than 80 countries in total. Pronar employs over 3000 people.
A work plan for 2024-2025 in fulfillment of a memorandum of understanding on bilateral cooperation was signed on Monday by the Ukrainian National Office for Intellectual Property and Innovation (UKRNOISI, IP Office) and the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) during a visit to Kiev by an EU delegation led by EUIPO Executive Director Joao Negrau.
“The plan … opens the door to the inclusion of data on Ukrainian trademarks and industrial designs in the EUIPO databases, which are the largest in the world with more than 115 million trademarks and more than 20 million industrial designs from five continents,” the Ministry of Economy said in a press release following the meeting and the signing of the document.
It is also assumed that UKRNOISI will receive support from the EU on issues related to the legal protection of trademarks and industrial designs, including IP rights protection.
In addition, as part of the work plan, UKRNOISI will take advantage of the EU support in harmonizing the Ukrainian practice of registration and examination of applications for trademarks and industrial designs with the EU practice. Such harmonization should allow Ukrainian businesses to operate more easily abroad.
As part of larger EU initiatives to deepen UKRNOISI’s integration into the EU intellectual property (IP) system, a project on international IP cooperation involving Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia is also under discussion.
It is specified that this was the first foreign visit in the new position of EUIPO Executive Director Joao Negrau.
“Intellectual property and innovation in the context of Ukraine’s attainment of EU candidate status play a defining role. By harmonizing rules and procedures in these areas, we not only open Ukraine to the world as an innovative and creative nation, but also significantly improve its investment attractiveness,” the release quotes First Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Economy Yulia Sviridenko as saying.
“The work plan agreed in Kyiv today not only emphasizes the commitment of EUIPO and EU national agencies to support our Ukrainian partners on the eve of EU accession, but also reinforces our role as an effective mediator for Ukraine in the dialogue with EU partners,” Negrau added.
According to Remy Duflo, Deputy Chairman of the EU Delegation to Ukraine, strengthening intellectual property protection is important not only in the context of Ukraine’s accession to the EU, but also for the more pressing needs of recovery, as without a strong intellectual property ecosystem, foreign investors will simply not come in sufficient numbers.
The MoE recalls that in June 2023, the EUIPO and the European Commission’s SME Fund to support Ukrainian enterprises was extended to include Ukrainian enterprises, which can now obtain funding to apply for the acquisition of intellectual property rights, in particular trademarks, industrial designs or inventions and utility models.
EUIPO is one of the largest decentralized offices of the EU, located in Alicante (Spain). EUIPO registers EU Trade Marks (EUTM) and Community Designs (RCD), which makes it possible to obtain legal protection for the relevant intellectual property in all EU Member States. The Office also cooperates with national and regional EU intellectual property offices and coordinates the activities of the European Observatory for Intellectual Property Infringement.
The number of structural units of Ukrainian banks in the third quarter of 2023 decreased by another 55 to 5,098 due to the closure of branches of the liquidated Concordbank and Ukrbudinvestbank, according to information published on the NBU website.
According to the information, the second largest state-owned Oschadbank by assets in the third quarter reduced the number of branches by one to 1182, retaining its first place among all banks in the country by this indicator.
PrivatBank, the largest bank by assets, kept the number of branches at the same level in July-September – 1131.
Raiffeisen Bank rounds out the top three, adding five branches to its 324 operating branches, becoming the leader in terms of branch growth in the third quarter of this year, while at the beginning of the year its network shrank by 27 branches to 323.
The fourth-ranked Ukrsibbank significantly reduced its network in July-September, from 230 to 222, and now FUIB, which closes the top five and whose network remained the same in the reporting period, is only one point behind it.
Two other banks have more than 200 branches: Ukrgasbank (218, minus one for the quarter) and A-Bank (202, no changes).
Sense Bank, which was nationalized in July, reduced its network by two branches to 138, making it one of the top ten banks with the largest networks in the market, followed by Accordbank (147) and Credit Agricole Bank (141).
OTP Bank (down to 71), Metabank (down to 25) and Piraeus Bank (down to 13) each had one less branch.
At the same time, RadaBank opened three branches in July-September and increased its network to 28 outlets, while Asvio Bank opened two outlets and its network reached 30 branches across the country.
TAScombank, Cominbank, MTB Bank, RBC Bank and Unex Bank each opened one outlet in the third quarter, expanding their networks to 94, 54, 43, 21 and 19 outlets, respectively.
In general, the rate of decline in the number of bank branches in the third quarter of this year accelerated to 1.1% from 0.8%, which is, however, lower than the 2.7% in the first quarter, as in the fourth quarter of last year it was 3.3%, in the third quarter – 7.9% and in the second quarter – 8.1%.
In February of this year, the National Bank proposed to the Ministry of Finance, as the owner of state-owned banks, to impose a moratorium on the reduction of their branch network during the war.
According to the updated data, since the beginning of 2022, the number of branches has decreased by 420 at Oschadbank, 366 at PrivatBank, 50 at Ukrgasbank, and 5 at Ukreximbank, to 48.
As of the beginning of October 2023, state-owned banks accounted for 53.3% of all bank branches in Ukraine.
As reported, the number of structural units of Ukrainian banks in 2022 decreased by 20.2%, or by 1349 branches, to 5,336 thousand.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has revoked the licenses of six financial institutions and removed two from the State Register and two from the Register of persons that are not financial institutions but have the right to provide certain financial services.
According to the regulator’s website, based on their own applications and submitted documents, all existing licenses were revoked and they were excluded from the State Register of Financial Institutions: Lombard “Capital Credit” Shevchenko and Company, LLC, A.T. Finance, LLC, FC Euro Premier Finance.
In addition, all existing licenses were revoked at the request of Lombard Regional PA, Zlatodar 585 PE and Company, and FC Fly Finance LLC, and FC Atlanta LLC was excluded from the State Register of Financial Institutions and Leasing Company Agrofund LLC was excluded from the Register of Persons that are not financial institutions but have the right to provide certain financial services.
They were also excluded from the State Register of Financial Institutions: Instant Lending Service LLC – due to the NBU’s decision to revoke all existing licenses and FC Sun-Rise Financial LLC – due to the absence of financial services licenses for three months.
Due to the fact that SE “Spetsagroleasing” does not have a valid license to provide financial services, the company was excluded from the Register of persons that are not financial institutions but have the right to provide certain financial services.
The NBU Committee on Supervision and Regulation of Non-Banking Financial Services Markets made these decisions at a meeting on October 20, 2023.
Agrarian Ministers of Ukraine and the Federal Republic of Germany Mykola Solskyy and Cem Ozdemir discussed the operation of the sea corridor from the ports of Odessa region within the framework of the meeting of the EU Council on Agriculture and Fisheries (AgriFish), which is held in Luxembourg on October 23-24, the press service of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine reported.
According to the report, the parties also discussed the export of Ukrainian agricultural products to Europe, including the transit of grain to European ports.
Solskyy said that Ukraine within the framework of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Grain from Ukraine initiative plans to send ships with humanitarian grain to African countries. In particular, 25,000 tons to Nigeria, 32,000 tons to Sudan and 12,500 tons to Somalia.
Ozdemir expressed his solidarity, noting that his country will continue to support Ukrainian farmers.
“Germany will continue to support Ukraine and stands in solidarity with it,” the press service of the German Ministry of Agriculture quoted Ozdemir as saying on Twitter during talks on the sidelines of the AgriFish meeting with Ukraine’s agro-politics minister Solskiy.
The German side also said that the agrarian ministers of the two countries discussed the prospects for expanding solidarity corridors, the efficiency of export routes and the strengthening of the Ukrainian agribusiness sector.
The state-owned enterprise Forests of Ukraine has increased its profit to UAH 2.6 billion following the results of nine months of work, the company’s director general, Yuriy Bolokhovets, has said.
“This is ten times more than the industry earned before the reform, in the times of state forestry enterprises. We send the lion’s share of profit to the state budget. These are funds for new weapons, ammunition, military salaries,” he noted.
According to the press service of the enterprise, for nine months “Forests of Ukraine” transferred to the state budget 4.7 billion UAH, which is 1.1 billion UAH more than last year. Hundreds of millions more hryvnias the enterprise invested in new equipment for the AFU.
“The record profit was achieved in a falling market. The situation in the timber market has not improved. Compared to last year, the average selling price of an impersonal cube of untreated wood fell from UAH 1.8 thousand to UAH 1.7 thousand. We also gave up our own processing – realization of sawn timber by branches of SE decreased from 2.8 to 2.1 billion UAH”, – explained Bolokhovets.
According to the head of the company, the profit of SE has increased due to detenization and increased efficiency of the state enterprise. The majority of purchases have been transferred to Prozorro, which allowed to eliminate gaps in timber sales related to direct contracts – products are sold at the established competitive market prices.
It is noted that customers are offered additional services, in particular, loading and customs clearance of products. The level of fulfillment of exchange contracts has increased to almost 90%. Services of contractors for harvesting and other works have been standardized, and boundary prices have been introduced.
In addition, the electronic accounting system was improved, which made it more difficult for illegal timber to enter the market, and the demand for legal products increased accordingly. Also, all non-purpose expenses of branches such as “paving stones” were reduced.
State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” standardized the staff of branches and reduced unnecessary administrative staff, as a result of which it replaced almost half of the branch managers.
The company has also decided and sells subsidized facilities through the State Property Fund.
“Really counteract fictitious works and services, which in the times of leskhozes were a common phenomenon. We have abandoned the use of expensive and inefficient financial instruments, which previously often led to the leaching of funds from state forestry enterprises – for example, the lease of equipment at unreasonable rates,” – summarized Bolokhovets.
As reported, the state specialized economic enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” is one of the largest forest users in Europe and the largest in Ukraine. It is under the management of the State Agency of Forest Resources of Ukraine. The company manages 6.6 million hectares of state forest lands.
