The international reserves of Ukraine as of September 1, 2021, according to preliminary data, amounted to $31.614 billion (in equivalent), which is 9.2% more than at the beginning of August this year ($28.951 billion) according to the data of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
“As of September 1, 2021, Ukraine’s international reserves, according to preliminary data, amounted to $31.614 billion (in equivalent). This volume of reserves is a record over the past nine years … In August, the reserves increased by 9.2% due to, first of all, the receipt of funds in the amount of 1.928 billion special drawing rights (SDR) within the general allocation from the IMF,” the report says.
As the National Bank notes, the dynamics of the August reserves was affected by the operations of managing the state debt: the total volume of payments for servicing and repaying the state and state-guaranteed debt in foreign currency amounted to $ 188 million (in equivalent).
It is specified that $ 33.7 million was spent on servicing and redeeming external bonds, $ 18.2 million – on servicing and redeeming government domestic loan bonds, the rest – for fulfilling other government obligations in foreign currency.
At the same time, in August, foreign exchange receipts in favor of the government amounted to $ 8.8 million (in equivalent).
The dynamics of reserves was also influenced by the operations of the NBU in the interbank market. In particular, the central bank replenished its reserves by $ 348.3 million due to the fact that for most of August supply on the market prevailed over demand.
In addition, the dynamics of the indicator was influenced by the revaluation of financial instruments: last month their value decreased by $ 31.6 million (in equivalent), according to the National Bank.
The regulator noted as of September 1, 2021 the volume of international reserves covers 4.4 months of future imports – this is enough to fulfill the obligations of Ukraine, the current operations of the government and the NBU.
In addition, the NBU clarified that Ukraine’s net international reserves in August increased by $ 2.836 billion, or 15.3%, to $ 21.364 billion.
Ukraine and the United States have agreed to strengthen bilateral cooperation mechanisms on veterinary and biosecurity requirements, and discussed joint initiatives at the global level regarding common requirements under trade agreements and individual bilateral veterinary certificates, the Economy Ministry said on its website. The corresponding decision was made during a meeting between First Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Economy Oleksiy Liubchenko and Acting Deputy Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Jason Hafemeister during a working visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the United States.
According to the ministry, the parties also confirmed a common vision of the strategic goals of agricultural policy in matters of climate neutrality and overcoming hunger. In addition, Ukraine and the United States agreed on a common position within the framework of the UN Food Systems Summit, which will be held on September 23 this year, to achieve sustainable development goals, including overcoming hunger.
In addition, the Ukrainian side called on American companies to increase the supply of modern technologies in the Ukrainian market. The parties also discussed the involvement of American companies in the implementation of land reclamation projects in Ukraine as part of efforts to counter the negative consequences of climate change.
Export Credit Agency (ECA) and export credit agency KUKE S.A. (Poland) have signed a memorandum of cooperation to support and facilitate trade and foreign investment between Poland and Ukraine, according to the ECA website.
According to the memorandum, companies can propose joint projects, hold meetings and exchange general information on business development, new products, structural changes, country policies and insurance standards.
“Ukraine is becoming an increasingly important economic partner for Poland: it ranks third among the largest Polish export destinations covered by KUKE and is still growing dynamically. The agreement recently signed by our agencies will allow exporters from both countries to cooperate, including under joint projects in third markets. At the same time, the agreement gives KUKE an opportunity to share with our Ukrainian partner 30 years of export support experience, becoming an important factor in the stable economic development of Ukraine,” President and Managing Director of KUKE Janusz Władyczak said.
ECA is an agency authorized by the government, the purpose of which is to stimulate the export of Ukrainian goods and services, and the main task is to protect Ukrainian exporters from the risk of non-payment and financial losses associated with the implementation of foreign economic agreements (contracts) through insurance, reinsurance and collateral.
KUKE S.A. was established in 1991 by the State Treasury of Poland to support the export activities of Polish enterprises. As the official export credit agency of Poland, KUKE is authorized to provide export insurance with the support of the state treasury, helping Polish companies to develop abroad. KUKE currently operates in 120 export markets.
The pharmaceutical company Lekhim plans to launch phase one of its plant in Uzbekistan in 2023 and open ampoule production, Chairman of the supervisory board of the Lekhim Group Valeriy Pechaev has said.
“In 2020, we created the Lekhim enterprise in Tashkent to sell domestic medicines and to organize production in Uzbekistan. The main thing was to find a site for production,” he told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to Pechaev, the company managed to find a plot of 3 hectares on the outskirts of Tashkent for the construction of the plant. The site is located three kilometers from the territory where the Uzbek government plans to organize a pharmaceutical cluster, but does not apply to it.
“We have selected a site, received a permit for perpetual use of land, developed and agreed on a project to master the entire territory and started construction in the spring of this year,” he said.
Pechaev said that since 2020, Lekhim has invested $2.5 million in this project, the total investment until 2023 will be about $10-12 million, and the total cost of the project is about $ 40 million.
“Now, we are financing the project from our own funds, but in 2023 we are planning to attract investments from the EBRD. We have long-standing good relations with them. We think that in 2022, when the buildings and structures are ready, we will attract them to buy equipment,” he said.
Pechaev said that Lekhim plans to attract financing from the EBRD, which will amount to about 30% of the charter capital. In the future, Lekhim plans to use EBRD loans in construction.
The project includes the creation of an ampoule production with an annual capacity of 150 million ampoules, the production of cephalosporin antibiotics with a capacity of about 15-20 million bottles and the production of solid forms of drugs (tablets, capsules) with a capacity of up to 1 billion pieces.
“The first stage, I think, will be launched at the end of 2023. It will be ampoule production. In addition, first of all, we will introduce an administrative building, a central laboratory of the plant, an energy workshop and a production workshop itself with an area of 4,500 square meters for three lines of injectable drugs. Each line produces 50 million ampoules. We will launch one line,” he said.
Pechaev said that in 2024, Lekhim plans to start building a facility to manufacture solid forms and antibiotics.
The company plans to annually produce products worth about $60 million in Uzbekistan. The plant will focus on the regional market, its products will be supplied, in particular, to Uzbekistan and Afghanistan and other countries of the region.
Pechaev said that “Uzbekistan today is a country with almost 35 million people, rich in natural resources, cheap gas and oil and, what is important, with a favorable investment climate and the protection of foreign investments declared by the state.”
“Therefore, today in Uzbekistan there is such a boom in investments and a fairly low cost of production,” he said.
Pechaev said that Lekhim also has a trade office in Lithuania, but there is no talk of organizing a production facility there yet.
In addition, the chairman of the supervisory board said that the company is currently also implementing two projects in Ukraine: the construction of a plant for manufacturing cephalosporin antibiotics in injectable and solid forms in Obukhiv (Kyiv region), as well as the launch of vaccine production at the Kharkiv Lekhim plant.
“I think that we will launch the plant in Obukhiv by the end of 2021. We plan to launch vaccine production in Kharkiv in the first quarter of 2022,” he said.
Pechaev said that the capacity of vaccine production will be about 40 million syringes per year.
The facility will produce vaccines against COVID-19 and influenza vaccines using technology transferred to Lekhim by China’s Sinovac Life Sciences.
“China has transferred both technologies to us – for the production of a vaccine against COVID-19 and for the production of a vaccine against influenza. We have already declared this in the Ministry of Health and asked to make a state procurement order with us for 2022 for 17 million doses of vaccines against COVID-19 and 3 million doses flu vaccines,” he said.
Pechaev said that further plans for the development of vaccine production will depend on the epidemiological situation. “I think the coronavirus will never end, and we will just do the annual flu vaccinations,” he said.
At the same time, Pechaev suggested that over time, the technology of inactivated vaccines against COVID-19, which is used to produce the CoronaVac vaccine, will replace the technologies by which other vaccines against COVID-19 are produced.
He said that since the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic, Lekhim has delivered 10.2 million doses of CoronaVac vaccine to Ukraine, including 1.9 million vaccines purchased through the state-owned enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine and 8.3 million doses purchased through the U.K. procurement agency Crown Agents.
Coal mining enterprises of Ukraine in January-August 2021 increased production of run-of-mine coal by 6.2% (by 1.154 million tonnes) compared to the same period in 2020, to 19.681 million tonnes, according to data from the Ministry of Energy.
According to the calculations of Interfax-Ukraine, in particular, coal mining enterprises managed by the ministry increased production by 2.2 times over the eight months of this year (by 2.223 million tonnes), to 4.021 million tonnes, which is largely due to the return of Dobropilliavuhillia assets from DTEK’s lease.
The mines of Donetsk region over the eight months of this year ensured production of 8.129 million tonnes of coal (more by 21.4% compared to January-August 2020), Luhansk – 176,700 tonnes (more by 33.6%), Dnipropetrovsk – 10.506 million tonnes (less by 2.9%), Lviv – 858,100 tonnes (more by 1.1%), and Volyn – 11,000 tonnes (less by 57.6%).
In August 2021, production of run-of-mine coal in the country fell by 27.6% (by 770,200 tonnes) compared to the same month last year, to 2.016 million tonnes.
Sri Lanka is interested in increasing the supply of food and industrial products to the Ukrainian market, the Ministry of Economy said following a meeting between Deputy Minister, Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka and State Minister of Regional Cooperation of Sri Lanka Tharaka Balasuriya. “The participants expressed interest in increasing the supply of food [tea, coffee, fruit] and industrial [textiles, clothing] products to the Ukrainian market,” the ministry said on its website on Friday.
In addition, the parties noted the prospects for cooperation in aircraft and shipbuilding, supplies of Ukrainian metallurgy products, energy and transport engineering, chemical industry and agriculture, recreational cooperation and tourism.
“The basis of our exports to Sri Lanka is traditionally agricultural products – vegetables, grains, oilseeds. Obviously, the trade potential between our countries has not yet been revealed. We, in turn, are open to cooperation in the trade and economic sphere and the implementation of joint business projects,” the ministry’s press service said, citing Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka.
The parties confirmed their readiness to create a joint intergovernmental commission as a platform for the development of trade and economic cooperation, the ministry said.
According to the State Statistics Service, the negative balance of trade with Sri Lanka in the first half of 2021 amounted to $10.154 million with an increase in Ukrainian exports to this country by 12.8% – to $9.22 million and an increase in imports from Sri Lanka to Ukraine by 18.1% – to $19.37 million over the specified period.
