National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 30/04/21
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
Another batch of CoronaVac coronavirus vaccine produced by the Chinese company Sinovac Life Sciences in the amount of 500,000 doses will arrive in Ukraine on Friday, April 30, Minister of Health of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov said.
“Sinovac has just confirmed to us the next delivery of CoronaVac vaccine. Tomorrow evening, 500,000 doses from our contract for 1.9 million doses will arrive in Kyiv,” Stepanov wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday evening.
Previously Stepanov said: “We expect Pfizer from two sources. The first is COVAX – 473,000 doses. We have received the official confirmation from COVAX that this will happen in the timeframe from May 17 to May 18. Also in May, we expect to get also about 500,000 doses under a direct contract from Pfizer. It will be used according to the vaccination plan in the categories of risk groups for people who are over 60 years old, or people who have concomitant diseases,” said Stepanov on the air of the Nash TV channel on Tuesday.
The minister also said when to wait for a new delivery of the Chinese vaccine CoronaVac. “By the way, today we have received confirmation, including from the Chinese Ambassador to Ukraine, that the next 500,000 doses of the vaccine should arrive in Ukraine by April 30,” Stepanov said.
The pilot project on the national geospatial data infrastructure, operating already more than a thousand sets of geological data from different regions of the country, will be presented to the public in May and implemented throughout Ukraine in 2021, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Roman Leschenko has said during a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
“Now the portal is in trial operation. Soon, anyone will be able to enter and, using a simple search, view information not only about the natural resources of the state, but also familiarize themselves with the established restrictions, protected zones or red lines. In the framework of the pilot project, all this information will be in free access,” the minister said.
Leschenko said that the introduction of the national geospatial data infrastructure will make it possible to fully digitize all data sets on the territory of Ukraine, deregulate existing procedures, open public access to information, create added value in every aspect of geospatial data, attract investment and minimize the impact of bureaucratic components. The work of the portal will also ensure greater efficiency of management and increase citizens’ confidence in the authorities.
He clarified that during the implementation of the project, citizens and foreign investors will be able to get access to open data through the geoportal without contacting officials, which will minimize the possible corruption component. The minister recalled that the first stage of the project was completed in December 2020, it was implemented in Lviv and Kharkiv regions, Lviv, Zhytomyr, Bila Tserkva, Mykolaiv, Mariupol and Poltava, as well as 75 united territorial communities throughout the country.
According to Leschenko, at the moment, the implementation of the second stage of the project is ongoing, more than a thousand data sets of various types and territorial affiliations are already available on the portal. In the future, as the portal is filled with data, the introduction of additional services, analytical elements and additional cases for each sphere of the Ukrainian economy was announced.
He noted that the uniqueness of the national geospatial data infrastructure system lies in the fact that all the data that will be reflected in it is not collected physically, but integrated using online services. For example, if in Lviv changes are made to urban planning documentation or local orthophotomaps are updated, it will instantly appear on the national geoportal.
“We understand very well that any data lose relevance after copying, therefore the main uniqueness of the system is its ability to display all data in real time. They are not just physically collected, but integrated using online services. In addition, all services are available for citizens in a machine-readable format, which makes it possible to integrate this system with similar resources,” the minister said.
Leschenko noted the positive dynamics of filling the geoportal with information in connection with the receipt by the communities of expanded management powers and predicts an increase in the amount of data in the system by several times by the end of this year. According to him, the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of bill No. 2194 on amendments to the Land Code of Ukraine will also speed up this process.
“At the moment, the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre has developed and agreed with the central executive authorities and submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers a draft resolution on the procedure for the functioning of the national geospatial data infrastructure. We expect that in the near future this resolution will be approved and a ready-made comprehensive legal basis for the functioning of the national infrastructure will appear, including for the functioning of the portal,” first deputy head of the service Anatoliy Miroshnychenko, who took part in the press conference, said.
According to the minister, the service is working on a project that will ensure the functioning of the agricultural land market in Ukraine. This consolidated portal will display land use data and related data from the State Tax Service, the Ministry of Justice, the State Judicial Administration, the State Water Agency and other departments.
“We are actually entering the geoportal, which is the beginning of a new stage in the development of the state. It is very important that in the 30th year of independence we are moving away from departmental and closed work with geospatial data to the most open, transparent and understandable digital process,” Leschenko said.
As reported, the national geospatial data infrastructure project is being implemented within the framework of the land reform initiated by the president in 2019.
Gazprom is thus far keeping to a stable approach to the use of Ukrainian transit capacities.
“You see our bookings. Our bookings are visible. Thus far, we remain at the same level,” Gazprom deputy head Elena Burmistrova said during Investor Day when asked about the prospects of increasing transit.
“We’ve had a very difficult winter in Europe, in Russia, in Asia. So we are now looking at our balances and resources – and looking at how we are going to move forward following the end of Q1,” she said.
In April, Gazprom pumps an average of 124 million cubic meters per day through Ukraine, fully using booked volume.
Europe is experiencing a notable shortage of gas for pumping into underground gas storage facilities.
Last Friday, the Ukrainian GTS Operator unexpectedly announced an auction for additional gas pumping to Europe in May in volume of half of current supplies: 64 million cubic meters per day above the current pumping capacity of 124 million cubic meters. However, capacity was left unused following the auction.
The Indian strain of coronavirus, which causes COVID-19 disease, is less dangerous than the British strain of coronavirus, experts at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine say.
“In our opinion, the British strain of the coronavirus is much more dangerous than the ‘Indian’, which has spread widely across Europe and Ukraine,” Director of the Institute Mykhailo Tukalo told Interfax-Ukraine, referring to the results of a study of the Indian strain by the Institute’s specialists.
Tukalo noted that the Indian strain has a new combination of mutations that are dangerous in terms of infectious properties, which were previously separately identified in different strains of the coronavirus.
“Thanks to these mutations, the virus penetrates into human cells faster. The genome of the Indian strain has about 25 mutations compared to the reference Wuhan strain,” he said.
The scientist recalled that another dangerous strain of the coronavirus, South African, has already been discovered in Ukraine, regarding which “the facts of the action of existing vaccines are not encouraging.” Moreover, the Indian strain has a mutation similar to the South African one.
The expert noted that the Indian strain has not been found in Ukraine yet, but has already been recorded in more than 20 countries around the world.
“Perhaps, this strain has not reached our country yet, but perhaps the reason is that very little sequencing is carried out in Ukraine – the study of mutations by decoding the virus genome sequence. Of course, it is necessary to establish constant monitoring and research of coronavirus strains,” he said.
Tukalo stressed that “the study of mutations will allow both to prevent new waves of the disease and to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment, as well as to understand the need to develop and use existing or new vaccines and the introduction of anti-epidemic measures to avoid the spread of dangerous strains.”
“Our institute has a successful track record of sequencing coronaviruses,” he said.
According to the world database GISAID, the “Indian” strain of coronavirus was detected by sequencing in more than 1,500 samples.
As reported, the PRC health authorities have recorded the “Indian” strain of the coronavirus COVID-19 in several cities in China.
JTI Ukraine tobacco company in 2020 produced 15.9 billion cigarettes at a factory in Kremenchuk (Poltava region), of which 6.04 billion were exported for $ 117.7 million, Director General of Japan Tobacco International (JTI) Ukraine Paul Holloway said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
He noted that the export of cigarettes by the company remains stable, despite the contraction of the Ukrainian cigarette market. Last year, JTI Ukraine exported its products to 14 countries, including Japan and Mexico.
“We are planning to turn the factory in Kremenchuk into a large export hub. Our factory is very flexible and can produce various types of products – we export not only cigarettes, but, for example, filters, which are then used to produce cigarettes in our other factories. We hope that our factory in Ukraine will continue to increase exports,” the director said.
He clarified that he hopes for further revenue growth from the export of the factory’s products in Kremenchuk. According to him, an important factor that influenced the company’s export plans was its obtaining the status of an authorized economic operator, which will reduce customs formalities when importing raw materials and exporting finished products.
Holloway noted that JTI, which received this status as the first in Ukraine, will receive a number of advantages when passing through customs formalities in Ukraine, including the opportunity to use a special dedicated traffic lane for commercial vehicles.
