Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal has said that integration with the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) will open up additional prospects for the development of “green energy” in Ukraine.
“Ukraine seeks to adapt the best policies of the European Union, and for this, over the past one and a half years, the government has been actively introducing and developing the gas and electricity market, and is also actively preparing for integration with ENTSO-E in 2023,” the government’s press service said, citing Shmyhal.
The prime minister said that Ukraine is integrating the System Value approach of the World Economic Forum (WEF) into economic planning, in particular, within the framework of this approach, energy efficiency improvements, modernization of distribution networks and an increase in the share of renewable energy sources will become important factors.
“The System Value approach, developed by the WEF, defines a set of solutions that contribute to the sustainable development of economic and power systems. It allows for a better and more complete assessment of the economic, environmental, social and technological results of implementing solutions in the power sector. This tool will also be used for “green” modernization of the economy,” the head of government said.
Shmyhal said that Ukraine has one of the most energy-intensive economies in Europe, and energy efficiency measures will help decarbonize Ukraine’s economy, increase investment in the technology sector and create new jobs.
According to the head of government, integration with the ENTSO-E, which is scheduled for 2023, will open up broad prospects for the development of renewable energy sources in Ukraine, while increasing the stability of the Ukrainian and European power systems.
The prime minister expressed confidence that in the next report of the WEF Energy Transition Index, Ukraine will rank higher thanks to the active development of smart grids, hydrogen economy and power storage systems.
As of June 9, all Ukrainian regions entered ‘green’ quarantine zone.
According to the press service of the Ministry of Health, the weakest quarantine restrictions are in effect in the “green” zone, including this level allows revising the approaches to anti-epidemic restrictions in terms of easing.
The “green” level is set simultaneously throughout Ukraine, if, in particular, the detection rate of cases of COVID-19 infection by PCR and by determination of the SARS-CoV-2 antigen is less than 5%.
In addition, the “green” level in the country is established if the incidence in at least 13 regions of Ukraine is less than 50% of the epidemiological threshold.
The European Business Association (EBA) supports the idea of a systematic fight against smuggling and solving problems at customs, but considers a useful tool for this to be a reduction of the demand for illegally imported goods in the domestic market due to fiscalization and increased fines for the non-issuance of fiscal checks, as well as the mechanism of cashback, the association said in a release on Wednesday.
“A useful tool for solving this problem may be to reduce the demand for illegally imported goods in the domestic market of Ukraine. This can be achieved by strengthening control over the use of cash registers and gradually expanding the scope of mandatory use of payment transactions recorders,” Senior Manager of EBA Consumer Electronics Committee Viktoria Kulykova said.
According to her, the European Business Association has already asked the President to pay special attention to this issue, in particular – to prevent the weakening of reform and strengthen control and punishment for violations of legislation in this area.
According to the association, in the absence of fiscal checks and effective control over their issuance, unscrupulous entrepreneurs begin to evade the necessarytaxes and customs duties.
“Therefore, there is an urgent need to create transparent, equal, and civilized conditions for doing business, including the introduction of European practices for the fiscalization of payment transactions,” the association said.
However, the EBA representatives are convinced that the situation can be further improved: in particular, by increasing the fines for non-issuance of fiscal checks and introducing a mechanism to motivate customers to verify the authenticity of fiscal checks, the so-called cashback.
According to the EBA Consumer Electronics Committee, the volume of illegal imports of certain product categories amounts to 50-70%. To understand the scale of the problem, the Ukrainian budget loses about UAH 33-35 billion annually because of smuggling (UAH 11-14 billion from illegal petroleum products, UAH 7 billion from machinery, UAH 12 billion from alcohol, and about UAH 7 billion from medicines).
JSC Zaporizhia Automobile Building Plant (ZAZ) in January-May of this year produced 1,742 passenger cars, while in the same period of 2020 – none, according to the statistics of the Ukrautoprom association.
At the same time, the plant produced 417 passenger cars in May, compared to 472 passenger cars in April this year.
The plant also produced 39 buses over the five months versus 13 buses a year earlier.
According to the statistics of the association, the second Ukrainian manufacturer of passenger cars, the Eurocar plant (Zakarpattia region), in January-May produced 1,796 Skoda passenger cars using the SKD assembly method, which is 35.5% more than in the same period last year, including 527 cars produced in May (6 times more than in May 2020).
As reported, taking into account these production indicators of the two plants, the production of passenger cars in Ukraine in January-May increased 2.7-fold, to 3,538 cars.
ZAZ is a leading automobile manufacturing plant with the capacity for full-scale production of automobiles. The plant is part of the Ukrainian Automobile Corporation (UkrAVTO), owned by Tariel Vasadze.
The corporation’s brand portfolio includes passenger cars Chery, Lada, Chevrolet, Kia, Renault, as well as Mercedes, Jeep, Maserati, and buses of several classes.
All Ukrainian national personnel of NATO-led Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan returned to Ukraine from June 1 to June 5.
“The planned return took place due to the decision of the NATO side to terminate the mission, which was adopted on April 14, 2021, following a meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of foreign ministers and defense ministers of the Mission’s contributing states,” the Defense Ministry of Ukraine said.
In total, the NATO mission in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan included 21 servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The main tasks of the Ukrainian national personnel included fulfilling duties as staff officers at the mission headquarters; conducting engineering reconnaissance of traffic routes, objects and terrain; implementation of measures to counter the use of improvised explosive devices and the disposal of explosive objects, and others.
“The experience gained in fulfilling the tasks of NATO-led Resolute Support Mission will be used by Ukrainian servicemen at home. In particular, carrying out tasks for the purpose of countering the Russian armed aggression in the area of the Joint Force Operation,” the Defense Ministry said.
NATO-led Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan launched on 1 January 2015 as part of the implementation of the decisions of the Alliance Summit in Chicago (May 2012) to provide the Afghan government with further assistance in the development of the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces.
“Resolute Support” in Afghanistan officially replaced another International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operation, which ended on December 28, 2014.
From June 2020, the Ukrainian airline WINDROSE launched a program of domestic flights within Ukraine. A transportation network began from six largest Ukrainian cities. However, in almost a year of existence, the flight map has already extended to 12 points: Kyiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Odesa, Kherson, Zaporizhia, and Mykolaiv. Flights to Uzhgorod, Kryvy Rih and Chernivtsi will start next week. And, judging by the fact that the number of cities and new flights is growing, the program is in demand among Ukrainians.
Interestingly, just a few months after the opening of flights within Ukraine, WINDROSE was the first to introduce a fare card in aviation. In Europe, this is a fairly common type of tickets, but we have such an offer for the first time. Earlier in the comments for the media, Commercial Director of WINDROSE Olha Tolstykhina noted that the program of domestic flights has not yet reached a break-even level. Taking into account the situation with the pandemic and the economic situation in general. Therefore, are aviation fare cards relevant in general? The press service of the company provided us with a comment regarding the sales of the fare cards. With the beginning of the summer season, they began to be advertised much more actively. Now there are three types of them: from 10 to 499 flights. The fare for one flight is $ 51, and the certificate itself is valid for a year.
The benefits are as follows:
❖ the cost of the ticket is fixed, so you do not overpay closer to the departure date;
❖ there are no restrictions on the booking period. The flight is available to booking until check-in for the flight;
❖ the flight using the fare card can be performed by the persons included in the list when ordering an airline fare card. The identification is the mobile phone number of the owner of the fare card.
Of course, such an offer is beneficial for those who travel frequently – business trips, the family in another city or even for health issues. Sometimes a medical specialist may be in another city, but consultations are needed several times. Also, for the year of the pandemic, domestic tourism has developed significantly and Ukrainians began to travel more within the home country. Therefore, there are many options for how to save money and travel more comfortably.
