Ukraine signed a memorandum with the European Union of understanding and a loan agreement between Ukraine, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) and the EU on the country’s receipt of macrofinancial assistance in the amount of EUR 1.2 billion.
On the Ukrainian side, the documents were signed by Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and NBU Governor Kyrylo Shevchenko.
National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 23/07/20
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
Official rates of banking metals from national bank as of July 23
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
The vast majority of Ukrainian citizens are concerned about infrastructure problems in their cities and villages, unemployment, housing and utility tariffs, as well as mass renaming of cities, villages and streets. Meanwhile, the issues of security and fight against corruption, which are being promoted by politicians, raise concern among fewer citizens.
This is shown by the results of a joint sociological survey, which was conducted by Active Group and the Expert Club and presented at a press conference hosted by the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency.
According to the survey, which was performed on July 10-12 via a phone interview, more than a half of citizens are concerned about quality of roads (54%), condition of public places (44.7%), condition of the infrastructure inside buildings (43.5%), unemployment (34.2%) and housing and utility tariffs (31.1%).
Almost a third of Ukrainian citizens (29.2%) are unhappy with mass renaming of streets, villages and cities all over the country.
Some 26.7% respondents are concerned about the lack of parking lots.
At the same time, the issues of security and corruption worry not more than one tenth of the population (10.6% and 8.7% respondents, respectively), while rural residents are not concerned about security and corruption at all.
While commenting on the results of the survey of Active Group and the Expert Club, co-founder of the Expert Club Danylo Bohatyriov said that he was not surprised by the fact that the population is concerned about infrastructure-related problems in the first place. It is a predictable response of people to broken roads and rotten communications. He added that while the authorities are at least trying to repair roads, the infrastructure of buildings lacks their attention even despite the fact that the housing and utility tariffs jumped by twelve times over the recent six years.
“The lack of jobs and the cost of utility services raise concern among almost equal number of respondents. And this is quite clear as the second problem originates from the first one. If they don’t have jobs, they are unable to pay for utility services. It also appeared that the issue of renaming streets and other objects is a matter of concern for 30% of respondents. Earlier, experts used to underestimate the level of concern with the issue among the population and disregard it,” the expert said.
Bohatyriov explained the loss of interest to the problem of corruption among the population by citizens’ exhaustion and disappointment.
“There has been a lot of reports on fight against corruption, but the key corrupt officials are still not imprisoned, and the hysterical background created around the issue especially during Poroshenko’s tenure simply made a significant number of our compatriots tired. Therefore, we recommend the political forces to stop exploiting this rotten topic and in fact take care of the infrastructure issues, creation of new jobs, revision of utility tariffs and stop this foolish campaign of renaming everything,” the expert said.
Additional information about the survey is available on the website of Active Group and on the Expert Club YouTube channel:
On July 22, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed the law, which proposes to resolve the issues of establishing borders and integrated spatial planning of communities. This is evidenced by the information on the website of the parliament.
As reported, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has adopted at the second reading bill No. 2280. It was supported by 320 MPs.
The bill establishes that the purpose of the land plot is determined by its owner independently, information about the type of purpose of the site chosen by the owner is entered into the State Land Cadastre. Establishing and changing the type of intended use of the land plot by its owner does not require the development of documentation on land management and decision-making by authorities, local authorities (except for defense lands).
The bill proposes settlement of community boundary issues; integrated spatial planning of community territories, while eliminating the need to develop several types of urban planning documentation and land management documentation related in content. It is also proposed rationing issues related to the approval of such documentation; rationing the formation of an electronic cartographic basis for territory planning; ensuring a real link between socio-economic development programs and spatial planning documentation; creating a mechanism for accounting for public and private interests through public discussion.
Northern Commercial Court of Appeal of Kyiv decided to postpone the meeting to consider the appeal of Tedis Ukraine LLC, the largest distributor of cigarettes, regarding the seizure of the company’s accounts on the application for securing the claim of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMC) under enforced collection of a fine.
“The personal presence of the MP from the Servant of People party Oleksandr Dubynsky and the rally of representatives of National Corps under the courthouse during the court session are eloquent. We regard this as a demonstration of unprecedented political and media pressure on judges and on our company, the only goal of which is to redistribute all tobacco market in the interests of certain groups of influence,” said the press service of “Tedis-Ukraine” to Interfax-Ukraine.
