JSC Ukrzaliznytsia has signed an agreement with PJSC Kriukov Car Building Works (KCBW) on the supply of 100 new passenger cars.
“This story had a success!” Ukrzaliznytsia signed an agreement with KCBW for the supply of 100 passenger cars. For the first time in the history of the country, such a number of cars will be purchased at the expense of the state,” Head of Ukrzaliznytsia Ivan Yuryk wrote on his Facebook page.
He said that these will be cars of domestic production. Accordingly, Ukrzaliznytsia with this purchase will support machine building and the country’s economy.
According to Yuryk, the wishes of passengers were taken into account in the development of technical documentation. Consequently, the company will receive modern carriages, in which everything to the smallest detail will be provided for the comfort of passengers.
As noted in a posting on the Ukrzaliznytsia’s website, the first batch of cars – at least 20 units – will be delivered by the end of this year.
“These cars will be used to transport passengers on the most popular routes. All cars under the signed agreement are to be delivered by the manufacturer by the end of next year. That is, they will enter the routes before the peak winter traffic of the 2022/23season,” Yuryk said.
The company also said that in 2021-2023, UAH 40.4 billion can be allocated from the state budget of Ukraine to renew the passenger rolling stock.
Earlier, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine recognized the provision of these funds as admissible state aid to Ukrzaliznytsia.
According to information posted in the ProZorro platform, KCBW will supply these 100 cars for UAH 3.042 billion. The purchase included four lots with the following items: 51 compartment cars, 12 luxury cars, 20 compartment cars with the ability to transport people with disabilities in a wheelchair, 17 compartment cars with a train manager’s compartment and with the ability to transport people with disabilities in a wheelchair.
Ukrzaliznytsia announced a tender for the purchase of 100 passenger cars with a total estimated cost of UAH 3.044 billion through the ProZorro state electronic platform in February this year.
In 2020, Ukrzaliznytsia acquired 28 new passenger cars for its own funds, compared with 19 in 2019. Thirteen cars were overhauled, and 439 cars passed first degree overhaul.
Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant (NFP, Dnipropetrovsk region) in January-May this year increased production by 12.5% compared to the same period last year, to 259,690 tonnes.
As the Ukrainian Association of Producers of Ferroalloys and Other Electrometallurgical Products told Interfax-Ukraine, in the five months, the plant increased production of silicon manganese by 9.6%, to 236,710 tonnes, and ferromanganese – by 53.9%, to 22,980 tonnes.
In May, 59,290 tonnes of ferroalloys were produced.
Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant is Ukraine’s largest ferroalloy smelter. It uses imported and domestic raw materials for the production of ferroalloys.
Nikopol plant is controlled by EastOne Group, established in autumn 2007 as a result of restructuring of Interpipe Group, and Privat Group, both based in Dnipro.
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Metinvest, an international vertically integrated mining and metallurgical group of companies, will act as the general partner of the international forum “Decarbonization of the Steel Industry: a Challenge for Ukraine,” which will be held in Kyiv on July 14, 2021.
According to the company’s press release, an event on the topic that has been discussed by the entire international community in recent years will be held in Ukraine for the first time.
As noted, for many years of operation, Metinvest has been striving to reduce the negative impact of production on the environment. Over the past 10 years, the group has allocated more than $ 3.4 billion for environmental initiatives and is committed to further reducing its carbon footprint to combat climate change.
Meanwhile, achieving carbon neutrality will be a big challenge for Ukrainian companies, as it involves a complete change in production processes and supply chains. In addition, the necessary technologies that will make the country’s economy carbon-free are only at the research stage. To develop a detailed roadmap for the transition to a “green” industry requires interaction between manufacturers, engineering companies, consumers, suppliers and the government.
Yuriy Ryzhenkov, the director general of Metinvest, stressed that the industry is facing a serious task that will affect the life of the entire country.
“Decarbonization can completely change both production and technologies. The sooner business and the state develop a unified approach to achieving carbon neutrality, the easier this process will be for the Ukrainian economy,” the top manager stated.
The forum is organized by GMK Center, an information-analytical and consulting company working in the field of metallurgy and industry. At the forum it is planned to discuss issues related to decarbonization of steel production, existing and promising technologies, plans of companies to reduce CO2 emissions and interaction with the state in this direction. The event will be attended by the representatives of mining and metallurgical companies, international engineering, consulting and R&D companies, as well as government officials, business associations and industry experts.
Ukrainians are actively switching to non-cash payments – 48% of citizens began to pay cashless more often than a year ago.
So, according to a study of the attitude of Ukrainians to non-cash payments, carried out by InMind for Mastercard in June 2021, some 49% are ready to completely abandon cash payments in the future, and every third Ukrainian is ready to do this within the next two years.
The company also notes that the pandemic has significantly influenced the growth of popularity of digital commerce in the world and in Ukraine in particular: 60% of surveyed users claim that they began to shop online much more often since the beginning of pandemic, and 45% make orders online regularly several times per month.
Also, Mastercard reported that during the pandemic, the “food” segment came out on top in Europe, showing an increase of 26%, the “electronics” segment grew by 24%, while in Ukraine both of these categories grew by 38%.
Also, an interesting trend in 2020 was the growth in the penetration of online transactions among customers over the age of 80 – both in the European market and in Ukraine. For example, in Czech Republic, the growth of online transactions in this category of users quadrupled last year.
“In Ukraine, the market has already recovered. We saw the first decrease in market activity and a significant drawdown in number of transactions during the first lockdown, when everyone was in shock. In January of this year there was also a lull, but January itself is not the most active month. But the lockdown in April did not show such a visible decrease in activity – people got used to it,” Director General of Mastercard in Ukraine and Moldova Inha Andreyeva said.
According to her, in Ukraine since 2016 there has been a stable increase in non-cash transactions by an average of 3% year on year.
“To date, nine out of ten transactions are already in the non-cash segment,” she said.
Also, 44% of Ukrainians prefer to choose shops with the possibility of cashless payments, and another 8% said they were not ready to use the services of shops without an option of cashless payments.
