The Ukrainian airline SkyUp Airlines has received TCO (Third Country Operator) authorization from the UK aviation authorities.
As noted in the announcement of the airline, circulated on Wednesday evening, it confirms compliance with the United Kingdom’s requirements in aviation security and allows flights to this country. The authorization does not have a validity period, but it must be confirmed every 24 months.
“The need to obtain British TCO authorization is related to the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. If previously the European regulator’s [EASA] authorization was sufficient to carry out flights, then from the beginning of 2023 new documents from the aviation authorities of Great Britain are required,” the airline said.
To get authorization, the airline has provided detailed information on operations, fleet, flight history, internal manuals and data on operational procedures, flight safety management system, etc. The British side has also received confirmation from the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine regarding the authenticity of all the documents provided.
When all procedures were completed, SkyUp received a document certifying compliance with the requirements of the UK Part-TCO Regulations.
From now on, SkyUp can fly to the UK without additional permits.
Earlier this year SkyUp also received the TCO of Switzerland, after which the airline performed a number of flights to this country under the terms of a wet-lease.
Ukrainian GlobalLogic, an IT company of the Hitachi group, has announced the acquisition of Fortech, a leading Romanian software development company.
Fortech is headquartered in Cluj-Napoca and is one of the largest digital engineering companies in Romania, GlobalLogic said on Wednesday.
The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Under the agreement, Fortech will continue to operate with its existing leadership and staff as a wholly owned subsidiary of GlobalLogic. The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approval and is expected to close by the end of Calendar Q4, 2022. The transaction will strengthen GlobalLogic’s presence in Europe by opening up access to Romania’s strong talent pool and Blue-Chip’s customer base.
In addition, GlobalLogic has opened an office in Bucharest and is inviting engineers to join the company in Romania.
“Fortech is a leading firm with proven track record and specialization in technology that is needed for digital evolution. This acquisition will further enhance GlobalLogic’s presence in Europe and accelerate our access to the rich technical talent in Romania; it will arm Fortech with the resources and strong backing of GlobalLogic and Hitachi,” Nitesh Banga, President and CEO of GlobalLogic, said.
Fortech was founded in 2003, and it cooperates with more than 1,100 specialists. With offices in four cities in Romania, it provides a full range of digital engineering services including architecture design, software development, DevOps, QA and data analytics. It specializes in Cloud, IOT and SaaS.
The press release states that GlobalLogic’s investment in Fortech is part of the company’s multi-year strategy to increase its value in the European market and help better serve customers around the world.
State-owned PrivatBank (Kyiv) raised limit on cash withdrawal at ATMs of its network for foreign cards and cards of other banks up to UAH 20 thousand per a transaction once in three hours since November 23, press-service of financial institution informed on Thursday.
“The increase in card cash-out limits for all Ukrainian and foreign banks will allow clients of all banks to access cash when necessary,” said PrivatBank board member for retail business Dmitry Musienko, quoted by the press service.
He added that at the moment there are more than 5 thousand ATMs in the network of PrivatBank in all regions of Ukraine.
The press service of the bank specified to Interfax-Ukraine news agency that previously the limit on withdrawal at PrivatBank ATMs of foreign and foreign cards was 10 thousand UAH.
ATMs, CASH, LIMIT, PRIVATBANK
Germany will provide another EUR 40 million in humanitarian aid for Ukraine, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office of Germany Anna Lührmann has said.
“I also came today to announce that Germany will provide EUR 40 million in humanitarian aid to help this winter. We will also provide an additional EUR 5 million for the reconstruction of Ukrainian schools along with the UNDP,” Lührmann told reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday.
She added that the process of transferring equipment to help during the upcoming winter is already underway, in particular, generators for more than EUR 11 million, which will arrive in Ukraine soon.
Lührmann arrived in Ukraine as part of a delegation of other high-ranking European officials. In particular, Vice-President of the European Parliament Nikola Beer, Federal Minister for the EU and Constitution at the Federal Chancellery of Austria Karoline Edtstadler, State Secretary for Europe of Croatia Andreja Metelko-Zgombić, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Education and Sport of Liechtenstein Dominique Hasler, Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry Foreign Affairs of Latvia Gunda Reire, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Jovita Neliupšienė, and Romanian Foreign Ministry Secretary of State for Global Affairs Daniela Gitman.
Thus, Gitman said that her country would provide EUR 300,000 UNHCR to help the Ukrainian population in winter.
Edtstadler said that Austria has provided Ukraine with the largest humanitarian aid package in history, amounting to more than EUR 92 million.
“In addition, we are providing EUR 100,000 to the International Criminal Court because it is important for me, as a former criminal judge, to ensure an independent investigation of war crimes and to start gathering evidence,” Edtstadler said.
Reire announced that a women’s rehabilitation center in Ivano-Frankivsk, which is partly funded by Latvia, will start operating next week. “It will provide shelter, a wide range of rehabilitation services, legal counseling, psychological assistance to women who are victims of sexual violence,” Reire said.
Equity markets in the Asia-Pacific region are mainly rising in trading on Thursday, following the dynamics of U.S. indices at the close of trading in the United States.
Investors were optimistic about the published minutes of the November meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. It is clear from the document that the vast majority of U.S. Central Bank executives support the view that the pace of base interest rate hike should slow down in the near future.
At the same time, the negative factor for the Asian stock markets is the uncertainty about the degree of strictness of the anti-covalent restrictions in China due to the new outbreak of coronavirus in the country.
“Asian markets are under pressure from the COVID-19 situation in China, where investors appear to be shunning local assets and commodities as the country faces a near-record number of coronavirus cases. Large-scale (anti-coVID – IF) restrictions will continue to adversely affect risk appetite and constrain macroeconomic indicators,” said ActivTrades analyst Anderson Alves.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was up 0.54% by 7:15 a.m. ksk, while Shanghai’s Shanghai Composite was down 0.1%.
The most significant rise on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange is shown by securities of Chinese real estate development companies: shares of Country Garden Holdings Co. Ltd. are up nearly 12%, Longfor Group Holdings Ltd. – by 9.3 percent and China Vanke Co. – up 4.5%. Traders reacted positively to messages from Chinese banks, including Bank of China Ltd., Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. and Bank of Communications Co. about their provision of new credit lines to developers.
Meanwhile, share prices of electronics maker Xiaomi Corp. are down 4 percent. The company unexpectedly posted a net loss in the third quarter and cut revenue by almost 10% on weakening demand for smartphones worldwide.
Japan’s Nikkei was up 1.1% by 7:20 a.m. Ksk.
Among the index components, IT company CyberAgent Inc. (+8.3%), logistics company Nippon Yusen K.K. (+6.1%) and energy company Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. Shares of semiconductor maker Advantest Corp. (+4.5%), online game developer NEXON Co. (+4%) and electronics equipment maker Tokyo Electron Ltd. (+3.7%) are also up actively.
South Korea’s Kospi Index was up 0.9 percent by 7:25 a.m. Ksk.
One of the world’s biggest chip and electronics maker Samsung Electronics Co. was up 0.7% and automaker Hyundai Motor rose 0.6%.
The Bank of Korea raised its key interest rate by 25 basis points to 3.25 percent a year at the end of Thursday’s meeting, the regulator said in a statement. Thus the South Korean Central Bank slowed the pace of tightening of monetary policy compared to October, when the rate was raised by 50 bps.
Australian S&P/ASX 200 index added 0.3%.
Share prices of the world’s largest mining companies BHP and Rio Tinto rose by 1.6% and 1.4%, respectively.
Oil prices are weak Thursday morning after a sharp decline in trading on Wednesday amid talks on the introduction of a ceiling on Russian oil prices.
The price of January Brent futures on London’s ICE Futures Exchange stood at $85.12 a barrel by 7:12 a.m. CST, down $0.29 (0.34%) from the previous session’s closing price. At the close of trading on Wednesday these contracts have fallen by $2.95 (3.3%) to $85.41 per barrel.
The price of WTI futures for January at electronic trades of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) makes $77.73 per barrel by that time, which is $0.21 (0.27%) lower than the final value of the previous session. The contract fell by $3.01 (3.7%) to $77.94 a barrel at the end of last session.
The U.S. and allied countries are planning to agree on a price ceiling on Russian oil of no more than $70 per barrel, The Wall Street Journal earlier reported, citing sources.
It was expected that a decision could be made as early as Wednesday, but EU countries have so far failed to come to a unified position, Bloomberg reported. According to the agency, the European Commission offered a $65 a barrel level, but Poland and the Baltic states found it too high. In turn, countries with a powerful shipping industry – Greece and Malta – do not want prices below $70.
“The higher the price ceiling, the easier it will be for buyers from India and China to get access to transport, insurance and other services from G7 countries,” Mizuho analysts wrote.
Also, market participants assessed the official data on energy stocks in the United States, which pointed to a sharp decline in oil reserves and an increase in petroleum products stocks last week.
Commercial oil inventories in the U.S. last week decreased by 3.69 million barrels, data from the weekly report of the U.S. Department of Energy showed. Experts had expected a decline of 2.61 million barrels.
Meanwhile, marketable gasoline inventories rose by 3.06 million barrels and distillates by 1.72 million barrels. Analysts were expecting the growth of the first indicator by 1.15 million barrels, the second – by 650 thousand barrels.
