The initial registrations of electric vehicles in Ukraine (new and used) in May 2021 decreased by almost 36% compared to May last year, to 622 units, including registrations of cars decreased by almost 36%, to 590 units, and commercial grew by 14%, to 32 units, according to the Ukrautoprom association.
According to a post on its website, the share of new electric cars in total registrations accounted for 11% (67 units).
The total number of registered passenger cars is 66 new and 524 used, and there is only one new commercial vehicle.
Compared to April this year, registrations in May decreased by 11%.
The most popular electric car in May was once again the Nissan Leaf with 186 cars of this model that received Ukrainian registration (in April – 198).
As reported, Nissan Motor Ukraine, the official distributor of Nissan in Ukraine, announced the start of official sales in Ukraine in the summer of the updated Nissan Leaf (before that, only used ones were imported to Ukraine), and in May announced that in the offered rich configuration N-Connecta the price starts from UAH 976,490.
The second result in May 2021 was shown by Tesla Model 3 with 66 registrations, and the third was AUDI E-Tron (33 registrations). The fourth most popular was Tesla Model S with 32 registrations, and Chevrolet Bolt closes the top five of the May electric car market with 29 cars.
The most popular commercial electric vehicle remains the Renault Kangoo Z.E. with 24 registrations.
According to the association, in January-May, a little more than 3,000 electric vehicles passed the first registration in Ukraine, which is 12% more than in the same period in 2020, with 90% of them being used.
In particular, registrations of new cars increased by 36.5% versus January-May 2020, to 299 units, used ones – by almost 10%, to 2,716 units.
The negative balance of Ukraine’s foreign trade in goods in January-April 2021 increased by 47.3% compared to January-April 2020, to $ 1.299 billion from $ 882 million, the State Statistics Service has reported.
According to its data, the export of goods from Ukraine for the specified period increased by 18.8% compared to the same period in 2020, to $ 19.094 billion, imports – by 20.3%, to $ 20.393 billion.
The State Statistics Service clarified that in April compared to March 2021, the seasonally adjusted export volume increased by 2.9%, to $ 5.274 billion, while imports decreased by 8.5%, to $ 5.606 billion.
The seasonally adjusted foreign trade balance in April 2021 was also negative and amounted to $ 359 million, which is better than the previous month ($571 million).
The ratio of coverage of imports by exports for the four months of the current year was 0.94 (for the four months of 2020 – some 0.95).
The State Statistics Service specified that foreign trade operations were carried out with partners from 216 countries of the world.
The State Agency for Tourism Development of Ukraine plans to launch a poll campaign of foreign tourists at the border in August or September, Head of the agency Maryana Oleskiv has said.
“We will soon announce a tender, and I think that in August or September there will be such a poll. They will ask the purpose of arrival, time of stay, what people plan to visit, what expenses are planned, etc. This will allow us to understand how many tourists we have from the entire entrance flow, who is this tourist, what are her/his preferences, where does she/he get information from, the purpose of the visit,” Oleskiv told Interfax-Ukraine.
In addition, according to her, the State Agency for Tourism Development will also announce a tender for the purchase of these payment systems.
“Since they will most accurately give us a picture of exactly the costs and composition of costs, as well as show where the foreign tourist comes from and what he spends his money on. This will allow us to more accurately plan our marketing campaigns,” she said.
Among the priority countries for inbound tourism from abroad, Oleskiv named Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Poland, as well as Israel and China.
“So far, China does not allow its citizens to actively travel. But we are at a ‘low start.’ As soon as we understand that the country starts to provide opportunities for citizens to travel, we will be actively involved,” she said.
Oleskiv expects that in 2021 Ukraine will be able to reach half of the volume of international tourism in 2019, and in 2023-2024 tourism worldwide should return to the pre-quarantine level.
The State Agency for Tourism Development of Ukraine intends to ask for an increase in funding to UAH 700 million, and will also initiate a change in the public procurement for marketing, Head of the agency Maryana Oleskiv has said.
“This year it is enough [UAH 100 million for the development of the tourist potential of Ukraine], since the agency starts using funds with a five-month delay. But in general, this money will not be enough for a large-scale advertising campaign, especially in TV. There is no need to do it, because the TV channels already pick up the content about Discover Ukraine, then abroad it is necessary. But there is not enough money for this, because, for example, a week of digital advertising on the BBC costs $100,000, and even more expensive on TV,” Oleskiv said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
She said that next year more funds are needed to develop the tourism potential, since Ukraine is not competitive, if we compare, for example, how much Turkey or Georgia spend on such needs.
“For 2021, we plan to give a budget request for UAH 700 million. But here it is worth emphasizing that if we cannot make changes to public procurement and carry out marketing activities a little differently than provided by the ProZorro platform, it will be difficult for us even to use the existing funds,” Oleskiv said.
According to her, given the lengthy procedures for approval and coordination of various documents, which took the agency more than five months, the agency is only now starting to announce tenders for the promotional campaign.
“This model is ineffective for the marketing of the country. Everything must be stable. We cannot stop for six months and not engage in promotion. There must be planning for at least two or three years, the possibility of flexible use of the budget, depending on any changes,” she added.
The head of the State Agency for Tourism Development said that the existing system of public procurement does not allow doing this, which, in turn, greatly complicates the marketing of Ukraine in general.
“Therefore, we will initiate a conversation about amendments to the public procurement law to make a different procedure for marketing procurement. It may need to be some kind of supervisory board from different people from creative fields, or, for example, a tender for one agency per year, which would work with this product within the allocated budget according to a certain plan, changes to which would be made in agreement with this supervisory board. This should be a completely different approach than what exists now,” Oleskiv said.
NEFCO (Nordic Environment Finance Corporation) has 117 projects in Ukraine for an estimated amount of EUR 180 million, on which agreements have been signed and which are under implementation.
“As of June 7, NEFCO has 117 projects, on which agreements have been signed and which are under implementation in Ukraine, and the total investment in these projects is approximately EUR 180 million,” the corporation said in response to Interfax-Ukraine’s request.
Of these projects, agreements for seven new projects were signed in 2021. The total amount of investments for them is about EUR 4 million.
In addition to them, many other projects are in development and at the preparatory stage, the corporation said.
At the same time, NEFCO said that, having decided to abandon investments in new projects in the renewable energy sector in 2020, the organization, to support the sustainable development of Ukraine, will continue developing and financing municipal projects in such sectors as energy efficiency, district heating and wastewater treatment.
“Special attention is paid to small and medium-sized projects, as well as those that are examples of how to respond to technological advances. Financing projects in the municipal sector in Eastern Europe is one of the three main directions of NEFCO’s strategy for the next five years,” the corporation said.
At the same time, NEFCO also drew attention to the fact that the decision to stop financing projects in the renewable energy sector “is based solely on the fact that agreements on feed-in tariffs are not being implemented.”
At the same time, they called the initiative to introduce an excise tax on electricity from renewable energy sources as erroneous, pointing out that in fact clean energy should be subsidized, and fossil resources should be taxed with CO2 emission tax.
DYNAMICS OF CHANGES IN DISCOUNT RATE OF NBU
