On Tuesday, the government of Ukraine allocated an additional UAH 2.3 billion to the Affordable Loans 5-7-9 program, under which the Cabinet of Ministers compensates the interest rate, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
“We have also reformatted this program. Now every entrepreneur can get a loan at 0% in the amount of up to UAH 60 million. The state will pay the interest to the bank,” he said in his address on Tuesday evening.
Shmygal stressed that the restart and resumption of business is a necessary condition for the sustainability of the economy.
The prime minister also noted that the government is providing assistance to farmers, and the sowing campaign has already begun in all regions, except for Luhansk.
“We have provided them (agrarians) with concessional financing for UAH 3.5 billion. At today’s meeting of the government, they decided to simplify the registration of agricultural machinery as much as possible. We are doing this so that sowing work in the field does not stop anywhere,” Shmyhal said.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Ministry of Finance announced that within the framework of the program “Affordable loans 5-7-9” from February 21 to April 11, 1,391 loans were issued for a total of UAH 3.95 billion.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal hopes that Ukraine will receive the status of a candidate for membership in the European Union no later than June 2022.
“We met with the leadership of the European Union in Kyiv. Received a questionnaire that must be completed in order to obtain candidate status for EU membership. We started working on it. We expect that Ukraine will be able to receive such a status no later than June of this year,” Shmygal said in his address on Tuesday evening.
A shift change of Ukrainian Antarctic expeditions took place at the Akademik Vernadsky station, the Ministry of Education and Science reports.
“Even despite the war in Ukraine and the difficult global logistics due to COVID-19, on April 12, 2022, a change of Ukrainian Antarctic expeditions took place at the Akademik Vernadsky station. The 26th Ukrainian Antarctic Expedition (UAE), having worked in Antarctica for a year, has gone home. Together with her, a seasonal detachment follows to Ukraine, which performed work throughout the Antarctic summer. At the same time, the station was accepted by the 27 UAE team, which will continue research and continuous measurements,” the press service of the ministry said in a statement.
It is noted that for the first time in 20 years, the shift change is provided by its own Ukrainian icebreaker Noosphere, which arrived at Vernadsky on March 30.
In addition to the winterers of the 27th expedition, the ship delivered to the station about 80 tons of various cargoes (an annual supply of food and household items for polar explorers, building materials, new equipment for station modernization), 140 thousand liters of fuel (annual supply), as well as the Vernadsky Autopark two snowmobiles and two new boats appeared, which are now used for unloading, and in the future – for marine research.
In addition, the team of scientists received a snowplow – in the previous 26 years, the polar explorers cleared the snow with their own hands.
“Note that all things were purchased last year and loaded onto the Noosphere before its departure from Odessa in January of this year (before the start of the war),” the message says.
The ministry said that at the moment, the Noosphere is on board with polar explorers to Chile, then the participants of the Antarctic expeditions will be delivered by plane to Warsaw, and from there – by land transport to Ukraine.
“Noosphere” will not return to Odessa until the end of the war, but will be based in one of the ports of the Southern Hemisphere,” the ministry emphasizes.
AKADEMIK VERNADSKY, ANTARCTIC STATION, POLAR EXPLORERS, SHIFT CHANGE
The loss of virtual monobank in the first quarter amounted to UAH 109.6 million, Oleg Gorokhovsky, co-founder of the bank, said.
“The total result of the quarter is a loss of UAH 109.6 million, including a UAH 548.2 million loss in March,” he wrote on Telegram on Tuesday.
Gorokhovsky pointed out that almost UAH 1 billion of reserves for the loan portfolio was formed in March.
“January was a profitable month, and February closed with a small plus,” added the co-founder of monobank.
As reported, in January 2017, a mobile bank without branches – monobank – was founded by former top managers of PrivatBank Roman Gorokhovsky, Dmitry Dubilet and Mikhail Rogalsky. It operates under the license of Universal Bank, which, among other things, is part of the TAS group (Kyiv).
As of December 31, 2021, the number of monobank customers amounted to 5 million people.
Record Agro LLC (Kyiv), the official distributor of the German breeding company Europlant, has resumed deliveries of high reproduction potato seeds from Germany to Ukraine, which were forced to stop with the start of the Russian military invasion.
On Tuesday, the website of the profile Ukrainian Association of Potato Producers (UAPC) reported on the import of the first batch of 22 tons of seed potatoes of the Bellarosa, Sanibel, Jeli, Vineta varieties.
“Potato seeds are categorized by the government as critical imports. There are no problems with its supplies. There are no queues at the border and customs,” Yuriy Dyak, director of Record Agro, is quoted in the message.
At the same time, it is specified that Ukrainian farms with the status of elite farms – certified seed enterprises – became the customers of the delivered batch. They will lay seed plantations in Ukraine for the 2023 harvest.
“We will be able to meet the needs of all elite farms in a very short time,” Dyak confirmed.
According to Record-Agro, at the moment the company is the only official importer of potato seeds in Ukraine, while the work of other seed farms is hampered by the military invasion of the aggressor country of the Russian Federation. The importer specified that Ukrainian farms are now growing seed potatoes from high reproductions purchased from European breeding companies in 2021.
As reported, by April 8, Ukraine had sown 1.07 million hectares of land with the main agricultural crops, which is 7.9% of the 13.44 million hectares planned for the current season, including 0.47 million ha. At the same time, 43.2 thousand hectares were sown with potatoes on the indicated date.
Volume of construction products produced by type in of 2021 (mln UAH)
SSC of Ukraine
