Traffic in the airspace of Ukraine in August fell by 56.3% compared to August 2019, the press service of the Ukrainian State Air Traffic Services Enterprise (UkSATSE) has reported.
In general, last month UkSATSE serviced 16,690 flights, of which 2,519 were domestic (a decrease in the number by 15.7% compared to August 2019), 8,249 were international (50.4% less), and 5,922 were transit (68.2% less).
Ukrainian airlines performed 6,373 flights (45.5% less than in August last year), foreign airlines some 10,317 flights (61.1% less).
As reported, traffic in the airspace of Ukraine in July fell by 68.3% compared to July 2019, UkSATSE serviced 12,195 flights.
Participants in the market where used cars from the United States are sold intend to create the Ukrainian Association of Transport, Service and Repair with the aim of participating in making legislative changes in the car market in order to avoid initiatives that create obstacles to buying inexpensive cars and raise their prices.
“We plan to make an influential body that will participate in drafting bills, amendments and additions related to the car industry, in discussions of planned legislative changes that may restrict the sale of cars with the relevant ministries,” Head of the association, co-founder of Columb Trade Pavlo Kazaryan said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.
According to lawyer Roman Voloshyn, the main goal of the association is to simplify business activities and opportunities for buyers as much as possible in order to reduce the cost of registration and purchase of such cars.
He said that the need to create an association arose after the car market participants managed to achieve the abolition of the planned ban on imports of cars to Ukraine after a road accident, which a draft government resolution developed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and published on its website contained.
After a public outcry, the government decided to abandon this idea of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the recently published updated text of the resolution on the registration of the vehicle no longer contains “scandalous provisions” prohibiting registrations of cars marked with the recycling label, as well as the need to translate accompanying documents into the state language with an apostille.
Meanwhile, as noted by the co-founder of the association, Volodymyr Kovel, negative changes have occurred since the publication of the resolution (February 2020), in particular, according to the surveys they conducted, about 72% of potential customers refused to buy a car from the United States in order to avoid risk and they overpaid 30% of the cost for the purchase of a car from Georgia and Europe or bought a car in a condition that was not desired.
In addition, he said that taxi services operating hybrids and electric cars received less money from investors for the purchase of cars and the development of the business, large contracts for the supply of spare parts from China, the United States and Germany were canceled due to the risk of closing the business, some companies were closed because customers stopped to sign transactions due to confusion, and dozens of service stations could go bankrupt, as they took large loans for business development.
“When we united to solve the problem, created a petition on the president’s website, which received more than 18,000 votes, many companies joined us, and we were heard by the state, we realized that it was necessary to create an association that would participate in the development of legislative changes, both taking into account the wishes of business and the authorities, that is, to find a compromise,” Kazaryan said.
According to him, the association intends to unite companies selling used cars from the United States, forwarding and brokerage companies, suppliers of spare parts, service stations and local carriers, as well as transport companies and taxi services.
“Any intention to amend the legislation affects the business, the pricing policy, and its entrepreneurs are afraid of such rumors in the market even more than inspections. The association is also needed in order to bring as many market participants to work legally and explain advantages of such work. I want about 85% of companies to work openly in a couple of years,” Voloshyn said.
According to him, after the publication of the draft resolution, the demand for cars from the United States in Ukraine fell due to the fact that people did not understand whether it was worth buying now, how to redo the documents, whether it would be registered.
“After the changes were removed, the percentage of purchases started to grow by 5-10% every day, and we have already reached the average monthly purchases that were before,” he said.
Asked about the impact of the situation with the spread of coronavirus in this country and lockdown restrictions on the business of selling cars (with a recycling label) from the United States, Kovel said that, of course, after the phases of falling prices for cars meant for recycling and the devastation of the market, prices increased, logistics due to temporary quarantine in ports has become more complicated.
“However, now the situation in the United States is leveling off, and prices are returning to the level before the COVID-19 pandemic. That is, there was no big decline in this area, and the expected changes in legislation brought much more losses,” Kovel said.
He recalled that taking into account monthly deliveries of about 10,000 cars from the United States, $327.8 million annually comes to the budget, and the total volume of the market of cars from the United States, taking into account all related services, is $836.64 million.
He named the Volkswagen Jetta and Passat cars assembled in Mexico, as well as the Ford Focus and Fusion cars the most popular.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Foreign Minister of Romania Bogdan Aurescu have agreed to establish a joint working group on cooperation in the energy sector.
“We discussed in detail the ambitious potential projects in the energy sector, primarily those related to electricity, gas and hydrogen. We decided to create a working group on energy issues and look forward to when our colleagues from the ministries of energy of Ukraine and Romania and the involved business companies will start a detailed substantive conversation on the issues that I have mentioned,” Kuleba said at a joint press conference with Aurescu in Bucharest.
He also noted that he had discussed with his Romanian colleague how to launch the Isaccea-Orlivka ferry service at a maximum capacity.
“I am absolutely sure that we can, we have every opportunity to create and implement ambitious projects that will make Ukraine, Romania, and our region as a whole stronger. It would be an unacceptable mistake not to use the opportunities that we have, primarily in energy and infrastructure sectors. And so today we’ve really discussed how we can launch the Isaccea-Orlivka ferry line at a maximum capacity and eliminate certain problematic issues,” the Ukrainian minister added.
State-controlled bank PrivatBank in January-July 2020 continues to top the list of profitable Ukrainian banks with a financial result of UAH 16.2 billion, while the largest loss since April 2020 has been recorded by state-owned Ukreximbank (UAH 2.24 billion), according to data posted on the website of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
According to the report, the second position in the list of the most profitable Ukrainian banks continued to be occupied by Oschadbank (UAH 4.32 billion), the third by Raiffeisen Bank Aval (UAH 2.46 billion). The fourth is still FUIB (UAH 1.5 billion), the fifth is OTP Bank (UAH 908.94 million), which climbed two steps, having received UAH 319.78 million of net profit in July.
In terms of losses in July, the list did not change: in the seven months of 2020, Prominvestbank ranked second (PIB, UAH 330.93 million), Credit Dnipro Bank ranked third (UAH 184.42 million), Pravex Bank ranked fourth (UAH 99.86 million), BTA Bank ranked fifth (UAH 67.17 million), according to the central bank’s statements.
In the seven months of 2020, solvent banks in Ukraine received UAH 28.39 billion of net profit, which is 23% less than in the same period of 2019 (UAH 36.73 billion).
During this period, 58 out of 75 banks operating in Ukraine were profitable, according to the NBU data.
According to the regulator’s statistics, in the seven months of 2020 in terms of total assets PrivatBank retained the first place in the rating (UAH 585.21 billion), Oschadbank ranked second (UAH 275.82 billion), Ukreximbank ranked third (UAH 239.05 billion), Ukrgasbank ranked fourth (UAH 163.13 billion), and Raiffeisen Bank Aval ranked fifth (UAH 104.17 billion).
Metinvest B.V. (the Netherlands), the parent company of the Metinvest mining and metallurgical group, in January-June 2020 reduced capital investments by 35% compared to the same period in 2019, to $ 313 million.
According to preliminary unaudited interim financial results for the first half of 2020, the capex reduction was planned during this period.
“In line with the group’s 2020 capex priorities for critical asset maintenance and the completion of ongoing strategic investment projects, investments in maintenance and repairs decreased by 33%, while investments in strategic projects were reduced by 38%, which brought their share in capital investments to 65% and 35%, respectively (63% and 37% in the first half of 2019),” the report states.
At the same time, it is clarified that the metallurgical segment accounted for 47% of capital investments (50% in the first half of 2019), and the mining segment for 49% (46% in the same comparison).
The Interdepartmental Commission on International Trade has launched an antidumping investigation into the import of cement from Turkey to Ukraine.
The commission’s decision of September 2, 2020 to initiate an investigation comes into force from the moment of its publication, according to data on the Uriadovy Kurier edition’s website on September 5, 2020.
According to the report, the commission received a corresponding complaint from PrJSC Dyckerhoff Cement Ukraine, PrJSC Kryvy Rih Cement, PrJSC Mykolaivcement, PJSC Podilsky Cement, Cement LLC with the support of PrJSC Ivano-Frankivskcement.
According to the applicant, during the observation period (2017-2019), the dumping import of cement in absolute terms increased by 809%, in terms of consumption by 837%. In addition, the trend continues in 2020. According to the forecast, by the end of 2020 imports will increase by 1,815% and 2,547%, respectively. At the same time, prices for imported cement were lower than the prices of the applicant, and the growing volumes of imports forced him to reduce prices, despite the increase in cost.
Having considered the complaint, the authority concluded that import of cement from Turkey to Ukraine was carried out in volumes and on conditions that could cause damage to the national producer.
The Ministry of Economy has been instructed to conduct the antidumping investigation. Registration of interested parties is carried out within 30 days.
