Kyiv City Council at an extraordinary meeting on Thursday, March 26, established a 50% discount for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to pay lease of municipal property due to quarantine measures.
“We promised and found a mechanism to reduce financial burden on small and medium-sized businesses operating in the capital, and which is most vulnerable in this difficult time for the city and the country. Small and medium-sized businesses will get the right to these benefits starting March 11,” the press service of Kyiv City State Administration said, citing Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
According to the statement, by the end of July 2020, entrepreneurs are provided with a 50% discount on the payment of communal property leases, and if the property cannot be used, tenants are also exempted from the lease payment until July 31.
According to Kyiv City State Administration, about 900,000 square meters of non-residential communal property are leased in the capital, most of which are rented by about 6,000 small and medium-sized entrepreneurs.
PJSC Khmelnytskoblenergo, according to preliminary data, doubled its net profit (by UAH 42.9 million) in 2019 compared to 2018, to UAH 85.711 million.
According to the statement on the website of Khmelnytskoblenergo on Thursday, Mach 26, about holding a general meeting of the company’s shareholders scheduled for April 30, 2020, its assets grew by 2.26%, to UAH 2.507 billion, fixed assets by 4.7%, to UAH 2.150 billion in 2019.
The meeting’s agenda contains four scenarios for the distribution of the company’s profits: it is proposed to pay 30%, 50%, 75% or 90% of these funds in dividends. The remaining funds should be allocated to replenishment of the company’s reserve capital (5%), replenishment of the fund for the company’s technical re-equipment or to the implementation of the expenses stipulated by the 2020 financial plan, depending on the amount of dividends.
The shareholders will also have to consider, in particular, the issue of granting consent to the alienation of the company’s share of 100% in the charter capital of Khmelnytskenergozbut LLC by selling at auction in ProZorro.Sale system.
The shareholders also intend to update the supervisory board and the audit committee, to amend the charter and to elect an external auditor of the company.
The sowing campaign amid quarantine started quite well in all regions of Ukraine, the pace is approximately the same as in 2019, with a slight advance due to early spring, Director General of UkrAgroConsult consulting agency Serhiy Feofilov has said.
“The import component in sowing resource is still very high. Nevertheless, the main material and technical resources were imported into Ukraine and purchased by farms before the quarantine and the devaluation. The negative impact on cost of production is still minimal,” the agency said on UkrAgroConsult’s website, citing Feofilov.
Feofilov said that it is a positive point in the fact that corn seeds are mainly produced at Ukrainian seed plants, only parental forms are imported. The expansion of spring grain will be precisely due to corn. The situation with plant protection is almost the same, namely all needed is imported, except that the line of products will decrease against expectations, the top manager said.
“The situation is contradictory in terms of fuel. Fuel supply is sufficient and the main intrigue is the price level. On the one hand, we can expect it to decline after the oil falls. On the other hand, fuel sellers tend to price stabilization, given hryvnia devaluation and a possible reduction in supplies,” the director general of UkrAgroConsult said.
The Cabinet of Ministers proposes to abolish support for agricultural producers, for which UAH 4 billion is provided in the 2020 national budget and increase funding for the Pension Fund of Ukraine by UAH 20 billion, to UAH 192 billion.
The materials of amendments to the law on the 2020 national budget of Ukraine, which the government submitted to the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada, were released by MP Oleksiy Honcharenko in the Telegram Channel on Thursday, March 26.
According to the amendments, the Cabinet of Ministers also intends to cut a number of subventions to local budgets, namely for the construction and repair of roads by UAH 3.24 billion, to UAH 18.9 billion; for local elections by more than UAH 2 billion, to UAH 1.3 million.
The amendments also provide for a reduction in the financing of the State Road Agency (Ukravtodor) by UAH 3.27 billion, to UAH 18.9 billion.
Regarding the country’s power bloc, it is proposed that the financing of the Interior Ministry be left at almost the same level at UAH 92.961 billion against the current UAH 92.966 billion. The costs for the Prosecutor General’s Office are proposed to be cut by UAH 50 million, to UAH 7.55 billion.
According to the materials with the proposed changes, funding for the Cabinet of Ministers Secretariat can be reduced by UAH 670 million, to UAH 930 million; the Supreme Court by UAH 110 million, to UAH 2.27 billion, the Verkhovna Rada apparatus by UAH 11 million, to UAH 1.989 billion.
Swiss-based AVIA network has opened the sixth fuel filling station in Ukraine on the route between Kyiv and Boryspil airport near the junction at Schaslyve.
The new AVIA station has five stands for refueling with petrol, diesel fuel, liquefied gas, as well as a store of 60 square meters.
“I am glad that we managed to launch another AVIA station in Ukraine, which confirms that the AVIA brand was well received in this market. The appearance of another AVIA station is also a good forecast for achieving our goal for 2020, which foresees the launch of about 30 stations of our network in Ukraine,” Robert Nowek, the Managing Director of the AVIA network in Poland and Ukraine, said.
As reported, in June 2019 the Polish company UNIMOT and Ukraine’s Wexler Group opened the first fuel station complex in Ukraine under the brand of the Swiss AVIA network.
During 2020-2022, the company planned to increase the number of filling stations under the AVIA brand to 100 units.
AVIA was established in Switzerland in 1927. Currently it has over 3,200 stations in 15 European countries.
A clearly defined procedure for the mandatory hospitalization of citizens who are diagnosed with coronavirus (COVID-19) or are suspected of carrying the virus will prevent possible abuse that may be caused by a restriction of patients’ rights, lawyers interviewed by Interfax-Ukraine have said.
“A clear fixed procedure for involuntary hospitalization, responsibility for violation of the rights of sick people will prevent the abuse that may occur during involuntary hospitalization,” Managing Partner of the Revealing Information Law Firm Oleksandr Keer said.
According to him, the procedure for hospitalization of patients by ambulance teams in medical institutions, approved by order of the Health Ministry No. 370 dated June 1, 2009, provides for the patient’s mandatory consent to hospitalization. At the same time, the law on ensuring sanitary and epidemic well-being of the population establishes that persons with especially dangerous infectious diseases, in case of refusal to be hospitalized, are subject to compulsory inpatient treatment, and carriers of the causative agents of such diseases and persons who have contact with such patients are obliged to be under medical supervision and quarantine in the prescribed manner.
Keyer emphasized that COVID-19 was included in the list of such diseases by order of the Health Ministry dated February 25, 2020.
Meanwhile, the law on the protection of the population from infectious diseases (adopted in 2000) provides that the central executive body, which ensures the formation of state policy in the field of health (Health Ministry), establishes the procedure for hospitalization, treatment and medical monitoring of patients with infectious diseases, contacts and bacterium carriers, as well as the conditions for their stay in relevant healthcare and scientific institutions.
“At present, there is no normative legal act that would determine the procedure for hospitalization, treatment, medical supervision of patients with infectious diseases, except for patients with tuberculosis,” the lawyer said.
Obligatory medical examination and hospitalization of patients with COVID-19 can be carried out on the basis of a corresponding statement of a representative of a medical institution by court decision. However, according to Keyer, the procedure for considering this category of cases will need to be provided for in Ukraine’s Civil Procedure Code to ensure rights, freedoms and interests of sick people.
