Ukrainian enterprises in January of this year reduced the export of ferrous metal scrap in monetary terms, according to operational data, by 56.48% compared to the same period last year, to $2.61 million.
According to preliminary generalized statistics released by the State Customs Service, in December 2021, scrap metal exports in monetary terms amounted to $26.98 million.
In January, the country reduced imports of scrap metal in monetary terms by 98.4%, to $53.28 thousand, in December scrap was imported for $3.96 million.
As reported, Ukraine in 2021 increased the export of ferrous metal scrap by 17.2 times compared to the previous year, to 615,687 tonnes, including 68,166 tonnes of scrap in December (35,824 tonnes were exported in 2020). In monetary terms, the export of scrap metal grew by 25.2 times, to $238.895 million.
In 2021, the country reduced the import of scrap metal in kind by 13.1%, to 22,964 tonnes. In monetary terms, the import of scrap rose by 72.4%, to $44.883 million.
Scrap metal in 2021 was mainly imported from Turkey (60.42% of deliveries in monetary terms), the Russian Federation (33.44%) and Belarus (1.57%); and exported to Turkey (84.85%), Romania (6.66%) and Poland (3.45%).
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who canceled her visit to Ukraine due to coronavirus (COVID-19) disease, said that she would go to Kyiv as soon as possible, and also plans to visit Moscow.
“She expressed her deep disappointment at being unable to travel to Ukraine this week, but hopes to reschedule her visit soon and said she plans to visit Moscow shortly,” according to a press release posted on the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s website, following a conversation between Truss and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.
Truss herself also said on Twitter that she would travel to Ukraine “as soon as possible.”
The British and Ukrainian Foreign Ministers discussed, in particular, “how responding decisively and strongly to the Kremlin now will help deter future as well as present Russian aggression.”
On Monday, Truss said she had infected with COVID-19 and would work from home during the lockdown. That is why she was not able to accompany British Prime Minister Boris Johnson during his visit to Ukraine on Tuesday, as previously planned.
On January 30, the prime minister’s office said that Truss would pay a visit to Moscow in the next two weeks.
Indian-based Indegene, in which Carlyle and Brighton Park Capital announced a $200 million investment for global expansion and acceleration of M&A deals a year ago, plans to open offices in Lviv (Ukraine), Krakow and Rzeszow (Poland), as well as Guadalajara (Mexico) for healthcare consulting and life sciences research.
“We are very impressed with the deep talent pool in Mexico, Poland and Ukraine. They have contemporary digital skills, great analytical abilities, and a nuanced understanding of user experience. We look forward to enhancing it with life sciences expertise and modern business process knowledge. Together, these skills open up tremendous career opportunities for a diverse, local talent community in a purpose-driven industry,”Manish Gupta, the co-founder and CEO of Indegene. Said.
Indegene, founded in 1998 by five entrepreneurs, has become a major player in the digital transformation market for medicine and healthcare. With more than 3,000 employees in North America, Europe, China, Japan and India, Indegene provides technology platforms and commercialization services to pharmaceutical, biotech and healthcare companies and has completed at least seven M&A transactions over the years.
Ukrainian seaports handled 14.964 million tonnes of cargo in January 2022, which is 49% more than in January 2021.
According to a message of the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority (USPA) on the website, in January, handling of export cargo amounted to 11.4 million tonnes (46% more compared to the same period in 2020), import cargo – 2.67 million tonnes (70.7% more), transit cargo – 689,220 tonnes (11.9% more), and coastal cargo – 192,950 tonnes (3.4 times more).
The largest handling volumes in January fell on grain cargo and ore – 6 million tonnes (twice as much) and 3.06 million tonnes (7% more), respectively. The handling volume of ferrous metals amounted to 1.32 million tonnes (3.1% less). Handling of coal in January increased by 5.5 times and amounted to 865,000 tonnes.
In addition, in January of this year, 82,042 TEU containers were handled, which is 8.4% more than in the same period last year.
Over January 2022, almost all ports have handling volumes higher than last year: Pivdenny – 5.1 million tonnes (37.9% more), Mykolaiv – 3.1 million tonnes (57.9% more), Chornomorsk – 2.7 million tonnes (90.3% more), Odesa – 1.8 million tonnes (13% more), Olvia – 811,200 tonnes (3.8 times more), Reni – 217,800 tonnes (4 times more), Kherson – 196,000 tonnes (48.8% more), and Berdiansk – 136,900 tonnes (67.8% more).
The Cabinet of Ministers approved the draft Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Turkey at a government meeting on Wednesday.
According to First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko, the agreement will bring an additional 2% of GDP annually.
“The basis of the agreement is the zeroing of duties by Turkey for 10,337 commodity items. This is 95% of the total number of goods. Another 1,348 commodity items will be subject to tariff quotas or duty reduction,” she said, presenting the draft FTA Agreement with Turkey at the government meeting.
Currently, Ukraine exports 1,100 commodity items to Turkey, since Turkey has one of the highest levels of customs protection in the world, she said. At the same time, the level of Ukrainian customs duties is one of the lowest.
“In recent years, we have begun to observe that Ukrainian duties have generally ceased to be a barrier to Turkish goods, while Turkish duties for our goods have been an impenetrable wall for entering their market,” Svyrydenko said.
According to her, Ukraine reserves the right to apply a duty on the export of scrap metal.
“At the same time, Turkey opens the domestic market for our metal. Duties for another 130 commodity items of metallurgy goods have been partially reduced… And additional quotas have been established for 160 metallurgy goods,” Svyrydenko said.
According to her, Ukraine will retain duties on the import of used cars, setting transitional periods of three to five years for vehicles and light industry products. As for the latter, Svyrydenko announced state support in the form of affordable loans for the modernization of equipment for Ukrainian light industry companies.
At the same time, the parties reserve the right to restore the effect of duties through the mechanism of bilateral safeguard measures.
As Svyrydenko said, the review of the agreement shall take place no later than two years later.
