National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 17/03/20
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has said that 1 million ‘express tests’ for coronavirus (COVID-19) will be supplied to Ukraine on Saturday, March 21.
“What we are lacking and what we have agreed on is ‘express tests’. That is what not only Ukraine, but also any European country needs now. We agreed with China and we are grateful to them. And a special thank you to Jack Ma [the founder of Alibaba Group] for help. He allocated $80 million. Thanks to him and thanks to Mr.Yaroslavksy [the owner of DCH], we are expecting the arrival of these ‘express tests’ to Ukraine on Saturday. They will be sufficient for around one million people,” he said in the Svoboda Slova (Freedom of Speech) program on the ICTV television channel on Monday.
The head of state stressed that all of these test kits will be supplied to hospitals.
He also said that a part of test kits will be delivered directly to the front line for Ukrainian servicemen, who are a category of people that cannot be isolated.
Ukraine could limit imports of cheese from the European Union (EU) over almost doubled increase in supplies of cheese in 2019 and due to growth of smuggling, Deputy Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture Minister of Ukraine, Taras Kachka, who is also the Trade Representative of Ukraine, has said.
“I’m very annoyed by the situation with the sharp increase in imports of cheeses and generally dairy products from the EU to Ukraine, even smuggling… To stop this, we can take very brutal steps. For example, safeguard measures against the import of cheeses into Ukraine,” Kachka said in an interview with Yevropeiska Pravda (European Truth) ezine.
He said that the sharp increase in imports of these products negatively affects Ukrainian producers.
“If our manufacturers make such a request, it is very likely [that such a scenario will be implemented],” the trade representative said.
“But this is a negative scenario, which can be avoided through greater coordination and greater support for each other. This coordination is much more important to me now in relations with the EU than the revision of tariff quotas,” he said.
Ukraine since the beginning of the agricultural year 2019/2020 (July-June) and as of March 13, 2020 had exported 42.94 million tonnes of grain and legumes, which is 8.66 million tonnes more than on the same date of the previous agri-year.
According to the information and analytical portal of the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine, to date, the country has exported 16.99 million tonnes of wheat, 21.38 million tonnes of corn, and 4.07 million tonnes of barley.
As of March 13 of this year, 263,700 tonnes of flour had been also exported.
As reported, Ukraine in the 2018/2019 agri-year exported a record 50.4 million tonnes of grain, legumes and flour, which is 23% more than in the previous agri-year.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in March raised its forecast for grain exports in Ukraine for the 2019/2020 agri-year by 680,000 tonnes compared with the February forecast, to 57.34 million tonnes due to corn.
The RDS road construction group, which is already represented in seven regions of Ukraine, is preparing for the expansion of its geographic footprint in the country, the co-owner of the group, Yevhen Konovalov, has said.
“Today we work in seven regions – Odesa (in the region and its central city), Mykolaiv, Kirovohrad, Cherkasy, Poltava, Vinnytsia and Kyiv regions. I would like to keep the list of the regions we are planning to enter this year a secret, but we have plans for at least three regions today. We will give more information about them soon,” he said in an exclusive interview to Interfax-Ukraine.
According to Konovalov, competition on the road construction and maintenance market has increased in recent years due to a growth in activities of Ukrainian and foreign companies.
“In order to stay afloat, we should expand the chain of our plants and production facilities. This will allow us saving the usual level of production and work load. They say that big companies are monopolizing the market, acting in collusion, but this is not true. Competition in our market is extremely high, we are competing using technologies and human resource,” the co-owner of group said.
While commenting on peculiarities of tenders in this area in Ukraine, Konovalov stressed that the cost of further maintenance should be included in the price of road construction.
“The tender amount can be very big at once, as it should include both the construction and road maintenance for a term of three to five years. Hence, tender financing should be as follows: UAH 100 million directly for the construction and another UAH 30 million for maintenance,” he said.
The co-owner of RDS also said that the group is currently discussing the issue with the management of Ukravtodor State Agency of Automobile Roads of Ukraine.
“The main thing is that the contractor, who had won a road construction tender, should be in charge of maintenance of new roads instead, and not the state represented by regional automobile road agencies with their outmoded equipment,” Konovalov said.
He added that besides maintenance the company should monitor the road quality on its own for five to ten years, as this is guaranteed by banking institutions.
“If the road service requests road repairs, then we will fix it. Otherwise, the bank with withdraw money from our account,” the co-owner of RDS said.
The Ukrainian group of companies RDS includes Kyivshliakhbud and Rostdorstroy. Its core business is construction, modernization and maintenance of roads and bridges, construction of airfield complexes.
The company is building concrete road H-14 Kropyvnytsky-Mykolaiv. As part of the reconstruction of the H-31 Dnipro-Reshetylivka highway in Poltava region, RDS is building an overpass over the railway and the section of the first concrete road in Ukraine. In 2019, the company won a World Bank tender for work on the first category highway M-03 Kyiv-Kharkiv-Dovzhansky.
As of January 2020, the company operates in seven regions of Ukraine and has ten production facilities.
The ultimate beneficial owners of RDS are Ukrainian citizens Yuriy Shumakher and Yevhen Konovalov. The charter capital of the company is UAH 5.13 million.
Consumer sentiment of Ukrainians in February 2020 deteriorated by 7.1 points, to 81.9 points on a 200-point scale, according to the website of Info Sapiens research agency. “All the indicator’s components decreased and the short-term economic expectations most of all,” the agency said on its website.
“In February the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) kept decreasing. Comparing to the peak level reached in September 2019, the index lost 16 points and almost a half of this decline (7 p.) happened in February regarding the January 2020. The most significant decrease happened in the west (19 p.), north and east (10 p. each) regions. The CCI in Kyiv and in the central region is stable,” Info Sapiens analysts comment.
“In February, the Index of Economic Expectations (ІЕE) decreased by 8.9 points to the level of 86.8. The Index of Expectations of the Country’s Economic Development over the next year (х3) decreased by 12.8 points and equals 80.1. The Index of Expectations of the Country’s Economic Development over the next five years (х4) decreased to the level of 93.7, which is 7.7 points lower than in January,” it said.
“The Index of the Current Situation (ICS) decreased by 4.5 points to the level of 74.5. The Index of Current Personal Financial Standing (х1) equaled 70.7, which is 5.7 points lower than the indicator in January. The Index of Propensity to Consume (х5) decreased by 3.3 p. and reached the indicator of 78.4,” according to the report.
“In February, the indicator of Index of Expectations of Changes in Unemployment equaled 128.7, which is 9.9 p. higher than previous month,” the report says.
