The RDS group of road construction companies annually congratulates children from needy families on World Children’s Day.
This year more than 50 multi-child families and children with disabilities registered at the Prymorsky territorial social services center in Odesa received gifts on World Children’s Day, the co-founder of the group, Yevhen Konovalov, said.
He noted that the company could not organize its annual concert for children due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Therefore it decided to present its young care recipients with sweets and tickets to the dolphin show valid until the end of the quarantine.
RDS Group is one of the top three road construction companies of Ukraine. It includes Kyivshliakhbud and Rostdorstroy. Its core business is construction, modernization and maintenance of roads and bridges, construction of airfield complexes.
As of April 2020, the company operates in eight regions of Ukraine and has ten production facilities.
Today the group carries out the repairs of the N-21 highway in Luhansk region within the Big Construction program. A part of the road connecting Severodonetsk and Stanytsia Luhanska is the only entry point to the temporarily occupied territory of Donbas. The company is also building concrete road N-31 Dnipro-Reshetylivka in Poltava region and overhauls the N-14 Kropyvnytsky-Mykolaiv highway.
The RDS group of road construction companies is also implementing a project financed by the World Bank for repairs of the M-03 Kyiv-Kharkiv-Dovzhansky highway.
The ultimate beneficial owners of RDS are Ukrainian citizens Yuriy Shumakher and Yevhen Konovalov.
The volume of construction work in Ukraine in April 2020 decreased by 16.1% compared to April 2019, while in March 2020 it decreased by 12.8% compared to March 2019. The State Statistics Service said that the volume of construction work amounted to UAH 36.2 billion from the beginning of 2020. In general, this indicator decreased by 8.7% in January-April 2020, compared to the same period in 2019.
According to the service, the indicator decreased by 4.1% in April compared to March (according to seasonally adjusted data, it decreased by 2.8%), while in March this figure fell by 1.8% compared to February.
The State Statistics Service said that in April 2020 from April 2019, the volume of work decreased in all sectors of construction. Thus, according to unadjusted data, the decrease in volumes of residential construction amounted to 28.9%, in nonresidential construction was12.1%, in building the engineering structures amounted to 12.6%.
The share of new construction of the total volume of finished construction works amounted to 45.3%, repairs to 27.1%, reconstruction and technical re-equipment to 27.6%.
In January-April 2020, compared with the same period in 2019, an increase in the volume of construction work was recorded in Chernihiv (by 38.3%, to UAH 499.6 million), Rivne (by 7.9%, to UAH 521 million), Lviv (by 5.1%, to UAH 2.63 billion), Kyiv (by 4.8%, to UAH 2.23 billion), Ternopil (by 3.5%, to UAH 519.5 million) and Mykolaiv (by 0.3%, to UAH 766.1 million) regions. In the remaining 18 regions and Kyiv city, a decrease in the volume of construction work was recorded, in particular, in Kirovohrad by 44.9%, to UAH 298.6 million, Vinnytsia by 33.3%, to UAH 1.28 billion, and Zhytomyr by 20.6%, to UAH 399.5 million. In Kyiv city, the volume of construction work done during this period decreased by 8.7% and amounted to UAH 8.91 billion.
The data are given excluding the occupied territory of Crimea and the temporarily occupied territories in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey Mevlut Cavusoglu said during a phone conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba that Turkey resumes regular passenger transportation with Ukraine from July 1, 2020, the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine has said.
“The foreign minister of Turkey informed [Kuleba] about the decision of the Turkish side to open its borders for foreign tourists and resume regular passenger transportation with Ukraine from July 1 this year. He also said that his country will create all necessary conditions for safe rest of Ukrainian citizens in summer,” it said on Monday.
The ministers also discussed the priority tasks of strategic partnership between Ukraine and Turkey in the near future, determined the key bilateral high-level events that will be held as soon as the epidemiological situation improves.
Kuleba and Cavusoglu also agreed to hold the next meeting of the joint strategic planning group at the level of foreign ministers of Ukraine and Turkey in Antalya.
They also discussed cooperation within international organizations, including the Council of Europe.
The surplus of Ukraine’s consolidated balance of payment in April 2020 reached $716 million, while in April 2019 the deficit was $46 million, according to preliminary data posted by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) on Friday. According to the report, the surplus of the current account of the balance of payment last month was $1.4 billion, and in April 2019 the deficit was $92 million.
The volume of exports of goods in April 2020 decreased by 4%(in March 2020 by 3.5%), to $3.6 billion. The decline was due to a decrease in the export of wood and wood products by 19.6% (by 11.7%), ferrous and non-ferrous metals – by 18.1% (by 13.1%) and engineering products – by 8.3% (by 13.3%), as well as a drop in exports of industrial products and chemical products by 24.2% and 2.5% respectively, which a month earlier had increased by 2.3% and 16.7%.
At the same time, in April, export of food products continued to grow – by 6.6% (by 2.3%) and mineral products – by 12.1% (by 3.5%).
In January-April 2020, exports to Asian countries increased in money terms (by $796 million, or 16.9%), while exports to the EU and the Russian Federation decreased by $555 million (9.7%) and $111 million (13.6%) respectively. Thus, the share of exports to Asian countries of total exports increased to 37% (from 31.3% for the same period in 2019), and to the EU and Russia decreased to 34.6% (from 38%) and to 4.7% (from 5.4%).
In April 2020, import of goods decreased more significantly – by 28.4% (in March – by 6%), to $3.4 billion, including energy imports decreased by 33.4% (in March – by 11.5%), and non-energy – by 28.6% (in March – by 4.8%).
Last month, in particular, imports of engineering products decreased by 28.7% (in March – by 2.6%), including cars by 33.4% (in March, it increased by 21.7%). In addition, exports of ferrous and non-ferrous metals decreased by 36.8% (in March – by 8.6%), industrial products by 23% (by 7.2%) and chemical products – by 17.5% (in March it grew by 2.1%).
At the same time, food imports continued to grow – by 2.1% after rapid growth in March by 20.9%.
According to the results of January-April 2020, imports from Russia (by $924 million, or 37.5%) and from the EU countries (by $314 million, or 4.5%) decreased the most in money terms, while Russia’s share of total imports decreased to 9.2% (from 13.2% according to the results of the corresponding period of 2019), and the EU increased to 40.8% (from 38.2%). At the same time, imports from Asian countries remained almost unchanged – it grew only by $34 million (or 0.8%), and its share of total imports – to 26.3% from 23.3%.
According to the report, the surplus in trade in services in April 2020 tripled to $555 million compared to April 2019, thanks to the higher rate of decline in imports of services (by half) compared to their exports (by 17.0%) due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A decrease in imports of services occurred along with a 72.2% decrease in expenses of people traveling abroad and short-term migrants, as well as a decrease in transport and other business services by 31.3% and 41.2%, respectively.
At the same time, a decrease in the export of services was facilitated by a decrease in transport services (37.5%) and expenses of people traveling in Ukraine (95.7%), while the export of computer services continued to increase (by 21.3%).
According to the central bank, the surplus in the balance of primary income in April 2020 decreased by 10.4%, to $420 million compared to April a year earlier due to the predominance of a decrease in receipts from payroll (by $158 million) over payments on income from investments (by $120 million).
Net borrowing from the outside world (total current account balance and capital account) last month amounted to $1.4 billion, which is 93.4% less than in April 2019 ($91 million).
Life insurance companies of Ukraine in January-March 2020 collected UAH 1.253 billion of gross insurance premiums, which is 22.8% more than in the same period in 2019.
According to the report on the website of the National Commission for the State Regulation of Financial Services Markets, 95% of total insurance premiums came from individuals, 5% from legal entities.
For the first quarter of 2020, the number of insured individuals increased by 11.8% or by 543,326 people, to 5.132 million people.
During this period, life companies paid customers UAH 146 million, which is 0.1% less than for the same period in 2019
The value of changes in life insurance reserves amounted to UAH 851 million, which is 3.7 times more than a year earlier. In particular, investment income, which is used when calculating insurance tariffs, amounted to UAH 75.1 million (16.6% more), and indexation of the amount of insurance sums some UAH 20.5 million (26.3% less).
In the first quarter of 2020, six life insurance companies received a negative value of growth in life insurance reserves totaling UAH 7.9 million, which is associated with the early termination of insurance contracts (in the first quarter of 2019, while seven life insurers declared a negative value for the total amount of UAH 25.4 million).
The Swedish Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M), the owner of Europe’s second largest clothing store chain, plans to open its fourth retail outlet in Ukraine on June 11 – the largest H&M store in the Ukrainian chain will be located in the Dream Town shopping and entertainment center, the press service of the shopping center said last week.
“On June 11, we will open a new store of the Swedish H&M chain, which will be the largest in Ukraine. So there will be a place for all departments: H&M Sport, H&M Mama, H&M +, LOGG and of course the big H&M Home,” Dream Town Director Yemets quoted in a message.
This will be the first H&M opening in Ukraine this year.
As reported, on September 12, 2019, H&M opened a store in the River Mall at 12, Dniprovska Naberezhna Street in the Darnytsky district of Kyiv, expanding the Ukrainian retail network to three stores. Its area was 2,900 square meters.
The Swedish retailer H&M entered the Ukrainian market in 2018, opening the first store with an area of 2,900 square meters in the Lavina Mall shopping center. The second brand store opened in October 2018 in the Sky Mall.
