The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved an agreement with the Government of the Republic of Peru to abolish visa requirements for short stays.
The relevant decision was made at the Wednesday government meeting.
This agreement was signed in Kyiv on July 15, 2021. The agreement provides for the abolition of visa requirements for the entry and stay of citizens of countries on the territory of the state of the other party for up to 90 days within 180 days.
For citizens of Ukraine, the possibility of visa-free tourist trips to Peru for up to 183 days will remain, which Peru introduced by a unilateral decision in 2003.
The Ukrainian Climate Fund, which is currently being developed by the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resource, may be launched early 2023, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine Roman Abramovsky has told the Green Deal portal.
“In any case, this fund can be launched at the beginning of 2023, because any budget documents involving changes in the receipts and expenditure are submitted before July 1,” the minister said.
At the same time, he said that there is still a lot of work to be done on the design and modeling of the Ukrainian Climate Fund, as well as in the adoption of a bill that will approve this fund.
“Nevertheless, I believe that this is objectively possible. One of the main tasks at this stage is to enlist the support of international financial institutions that can be investors within the fund and multiply the effect of the income from environmental taxes. There is no other way!” he said.
According to him, the ministry is negotiating with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank.
The minister also said that at the time of launch, the fund will have about UAH 8 billion of its own funds received from the proceeds from the tax on CO2 emissions and other environmental taxes.
Sugar production in Ukraine as of September 20 amounted to 74,900 tonnes. According to a report on the website of the Ukrtsukor National Association of Sugar Producers, in total, 629,800 tonnes of sugar beet had been processed.
According to the data on the website of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, as of September 16, Ukrainian agrarians harvested 506,300 tonnes of sugar beet (4.7% of the forecast) with a yield of 47.72 tonnes per ha.
As reported, the current season of sugar beet refining started in the country on August 21.
The Uzbek state airline Uzbekistan Airways has resumed flights on the Tashkent-Kyiv-Tashkent route after a six-year break, according to Boryspil International Airport’s Facebook page.
“Yesterday, the Uzbek state airline Uzbekistan Airways returned to Boryspil International Airport on the Tashkent-Kyiv-Tashkent route,” the report says.
Flights will be operated once a week on Sundays.
In addition to Uzbekistan Airways, flights to Tashkent from Kyiv are operated by Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) and SkyUp.
The share of illegal tobacco products on the Ukrainian market in February-May 2021 increased by 3.1 p.p., to 15.9%, this is the maximum indicator, mainly due to the growth of illegal sales of products labeled as Duty Free, as well as those intended for export.
Such data were published by the Kantar Ukraine research institute through a survey of 3,300 adult smokers throughout the country, as well as by studying the origin of tobacco products in circulation.
According to the study, the total volume of illegally sold cigarettes since the beginning of the year, including May, amounted to 7.21 billion pieces, which led to a shortfall in the state budget of UAH 13.2 billion in tax deductions.
Kantar clarified that in May 2021 the share of counterfeit products on the Ukrainian cigarette market increased by 1.8 p.p. compared to February – up to 4.2%, the share of products labeled for Duty Free and export illegally sold in the country – by 1.3 p.p., to 8.2%, while the share of smuggled cigarettes decreased by 0.1 p.p., to 1.6%.
According to the results of the study, the average annual level of illegal sales of tobacco products in January-May 2021 increased by 2.1 times compared with the indicator for the entire 2020 – up to 14.4%. At the same time, since the beginning of this year, the share of counterfeits in the domestic cigarette market has grown by 3.1 p.p. compared to the data for 2020 – up to 5.1%, the share of products marked for Duty Free and export illegally sold in Ukraine – by 4.8 p.p., to 7.6%, while the share of smuggled cigarettes decreased by 0.5 p.p., to 1.7%.
“In addition to another growth in the volume of illegal tobacco products, another feature of 2021 is that there is a change in the distribution channels for illegal products. In 2021, three times more illegal tobacco products were sold through kiosks and stores than in 2020,” analyst from Kantar Ukraine Tetiana Sverdlyk said.
The institute clarified that 62% of tobacco products illegally sold as export or Duty Free products are marked as produced by the Vynnyky Tobacco Factory (Vynnyky, Lviv region) and are marked as not intended for sale in Ukraine. The share of unidentified manufacturers is 20%, United Tobacco LLC (Zhovti Vody, Dnipropetrovsk region) – 15%.
The most common brands of this group of illegal products are the Compliment brand marked as Duty Free – with a share of 47%, as well as those intended for export, but sold in Ukraine, namely Marshall (13%), Marvel (10%), Urta (8%) and Jin Ling (6%). The total share of these brands in this product group was 84%.
Kantar noted that 49% of smuggled cigarettes are products of Grodno Tobacco Factory (Belarus), 15% are from Moldovan factories. The most common smuggled brands are Credo, Fest, Queen, Dove, NZ, Ritm.
It is specified that 63% of illegal products are distributed in seven regions of Ukraine, most of all – in Odesa and Kharkiv (13% each), Donetsk (10%), Dnipropetrovsk (8%), Zaporizhia, Khmelnytsky and Lviv (6% each) regions.
Date and time: September 30 — October 1, 2021, 09:30 — 19:30 (Kyiv time).
Place: Hilton Kyiv, 30 Taras Shevchenko blvd, Kyiv, Ukraine.
Attention! Pre-registration is required to attend the event
https://uba.ua/eng/registration/4098/
The main goal of the event is to discuss topical issues related to the functioning of the judicial system in Ukraine with the representatives of judicial institutions, international and national experts. You will see such representative among the participants of the forum: judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, of the Supreme Court, representatives of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, People’s Deputies of Ukraine, judges and practicing lawyers, international experts, representative s of the Council of Europe, and the Media.
This year, the topic of the forum is «Independent Judiciary — the basis of the state in times of change». The event is organized by the Ukrainian Bar Association in cooperation with the Council of Europe Project «Support to the Implementation of the Judicial Reform in Ukraine». The program coordinator of the event is Anna Ogrenchuk, President of the Ukrainian Bar Association, Managing Partner at LCF Law Group.
The event will be held in an adaptive quarantine measures.
Main topics and Expert Talks:
The connection between the society development and the judiciary.
New tools for simplifying access to justice — recommendation of the Council of Europe and Ukrainian development.
Mediation: principles of the Council of Europe and possible ways of their implementation in Ukraine.
Strategy for the development of the justice system and constitutional justice for 2021 — 2023.
Judicial reform, reform of the ССU: recent developments and priority steps.
Ensuring the unity of judicial practice: the recommendations of the Council of Europe and the achievements of the judiciary of Ukraine.
Procedural dilemmas as challenges to ensuring the right to a fair trial.
Antitrust disputes.
20 years of implementation of ECHR decisions in Ukraine: an adult view of the state of affairs.
Enforcement of judgments: the international aspect.
All presentations by foreign experts are provided with simultaneous translation.
https://judicialforum.uba.ua/en/
FOR QUESTIONS ABOUT PARTICIPATION AND PARTNERSHIP:
+38 (044) 492-88-48, conference@uba.ua
Tatiana Osaulenko, event coordinator.
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Yuliya Matvyeyeva, PR and international partnership coordinator.
Interfax-Ukraine — Media partner of the event.
