The delivery of a next batch of AstraZeneca (CoviShield) vaccine to Ukraine may be postponed for a certain period due to the active information campaign that was launched against the Indian vaccine in our country, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Public Health, Medical Assistance and Medical Insurance Mykhailo Radutsky (the Servant of the People faction) said.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has received a letter from the Indian Embassy, which emphasizes the inadmissibility of defamatory statements about India as a manufacturer of medicines and the AstraZeneca [CoviShield] vaccine supplied to Ukraine,” Radutsky wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.
He said that, as noted by the Indian side, the AstraZeneca vaccine (CoviShield) is an absolutely safe and effective drug, which has been confirmed by the World Health Organization.
“Only in Europe and India, about 50 million doses of this vaccine have already been used. Significant volumes of the drug have been contracted by countries such as Canada, Great Britain, Brazil and others,” the MP said.
He said that Ukraine has contracted 1.5 million doses of vaccine produced in India, but for the manufacturer “it is not a problem to transfer this batch to other customers”, since the demand for vaccines in the world significantly exceeds the production capacity.
“According to my information, President Volodymyr Zelensky instructed Ministers Maksym Stepanov and Dmytro Kuleba to find additional ways to speed up the delivery of the next batch of CoviShield vaccine to Ukraine. The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine should do everything necessary as soon as possible to convince Indian partners that the state and Ukrainian society are not involved in discrediting the vaccine supplier,” Radutsky said.
He said that both odious pro-Russian politicians and pseudo-patriotic political leaders who are doing everything to return to power, amid the destabilization of the country, worked to disrupt cooperation with India.
“We all remember the shameful statement of one of these figures, which he made during a meeting of the conciliation council of the Verkhovna Rada. It was a deliberate cynical game to disrupt the supply of vaccines and block the vaccination campaign. This man doomed thousands of Ukrainians to death in order to satisfy his own political ambitions,” the MP said.
As previously reported, the first batch of 500,000 doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca (CoviShield) vaccine was delivered to Ukraine on the morning of February 23
Top 20 countries Ukraine has posted the highest surplus of trade in goods in 2020 (thsd usd).
SSC of Ukraine
The market of mineral fertilizers in Ukraine in 2021 will increase by 8-10%, from 4 million tonnes to 4.4 million tonnes.
Such assessments of analysts of Group DF were announced by the chairman of the board of Cherkasy Azot, part of the group, Vitaliy Skliarov, during a working meeting at the Union of Chemists of Ukraine.
“We expect the industry to continue to grow this year. The deals we see in the first quarter, as well as the activity of farmers, give us enough reason to be optimistic,” he said.
According to Skliarov, the beginning of the year is characterized by a good steady demand for nitrogen fertilizers, which is evident from the applications.
“Figuratively speaking, our products are taken from under the grand tower, we practically do not work at the warehouse now. Moreover, the agricultural cycle and the purchase of fertilizers this year began about a month and a half earlier,” he described the current situation.
The expert believes that one of the reasons for the increased demand is the expectation of a good harvest due to sufficient rainfall in Ukraine this year.
He added that a positive effect from the introduction of the land market is also expected.
“This fall, the demand for fertilizers may turn out to be higher than usual, since people will invest more in their own land than in rented land,” Skliarov suggested.
According to him, another fundamental reason for the growth in demand for fertilizers is the global situation: due to COVID-19, the demand for food has significantly increased in the world and prices for basic agricultural commodities are growing.
The pharmaceutical group of companies Yuria-Pharm is considering the possibility of localizing vaccine production in Ukraine.
Director General of Yuria-Pharm pharmaceutical corporation Dmytro Derkach told Interfax-Ukraine that the company is actively working on the issue of providing the Ukrainian population with vaccines, including the vaccine against COVID-19.
“Five years ago, construction began on a new plant in Cherkasy with a total area of more than 25,000 square meters, which provides for high-tech aseptic production and production of biotechnological products. The workshops of the new production site have been launched starting in 2020,” he said.
According to Derkach, the construction of the new facility became possible “thanks to the principle that the company has adhered to since its inception: to reinvest over 80% of profits in new directions, which is more than $25 million per year, and also thanks to a loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD ) obtained in 2020.
He said that a prerequisite for the development of the production of biotechnological products was the developments of its own Biotech R&D, in particular, a technological platform for the development and pilot production of recombinant protein products, monoclonal antibodies. In addition, a hardware and methodological base was established to ensure quality control of biopharmaceuticals and vaccines, both of our own production and solutions of contract partners.
Yuria-Pharm is also testing its own platform for the development of RNA-based drugs as an effective, modern, safe and fast drug development method, which, in particular, has been used by companies that have become pioneers in the development of an RNA vaccine against COVID-19.
“We are now actively working on the issue of finding partners for the transfer of technology for the production of vaccines from COVID-19 to our new production site. We have selected a pool of companies for this, including from the United States and China, whose development is in the late stages, in particular in the third phase of clinical trials. We are negotiating with them to select a potential candidate for technology transfer and provide them with our production facilities,” Derkach said.
The director general of the group clarified: “We are not developing our own vaccine, since at present there are more than 130 companies in the world at various stages of developing a vaccine against COVID-19, so we are looking for a candidate among them.”
But at the same time, he believes that the pharmaceutical industry of Ukraine should be potentially ready for the transfer and industrial production of vaccines, the development of which will eventually be offered by domestic research institutes.
The group of companies Yuria-Pharm is included in the list of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Ukraine. The main areas of activity are the development (R&D,) production, marketing and distribution of drugs and medical products.
Yuria-Pharm LLC is a member of the Association of Manufacturers of Medications of Ukraine (AMMU).
Myronivsky Hliboproduct agricultural holding (MHP) received a net loss of $133 million in 2020 versus a net profit of $215 million in 2019, mainly due to exchange rate losses of $204 million due to the annual depreciation of hryvnia by 16%, and the company’s revenue decreased by 7%, to $1.91 billion.
According to the quarterly financial statements of the holding, released on London Stock Exchange on Wednesday, its adjusted EBITDA and operating income decreased by 7%, respectively, to $395 million and $201 million, while the profitability of sales (EBITDA margin) remained at the 2019 level of 21%.
The agricultural holding noted the impact of exchange rate losses in the amount of $204 million on the company’s financial indicators, saying that excluding exchange rate differences, the company’s net profit in 2020 would have been $71 million against $30 million in 2019.
MHP said that in 2020, export revenue decreased by 9.1%, to $1.015 billion, which is 53% of total revenue (56% of total revenue in 2019).
The agricultural holding said that the situation in export markets has deteriorated significantly due to several outbreaks of bird flu in early and late 2020 and the effect of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic throughout the year.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, MHP reduced its net loss by 60%, year-over-year, to $24 million, its total revenue decreased by 10%, to $497 million, and export revenue decreased by 19.3%, to $255 million (51% of total revenue).
MHP’s gross profit in the fourth quarter of 2020 increased by 44%, year-over-year, to $75 million, operating profit amounted to $7 million against an operating loss of $2 million, however EBITDA decreased by 10%, to $63 million.
Chief Executive Officer of the company Yuriy Kosyuk said in the statement that the company managed not only to adapt to the serious challenges of 2020, but also to become more resilient and take advantage of new opportunities. He said that as part of the strategic shift announced a year ago towards more customer-oriented products, including with additional processing and added value, for the domestic market of Ukraine and some export markets, the company launched a number of pilot projects for culinary transformation, including Meat Market convenience stores and DönerMarket houses.
“These offerings are at an early pilot stage and I look forward to updating you on progress in due course as this model is rolled-out more extensively over the next several years, transforming the group’s sales […] to a branded value-added base,” Kosyuk said.
According to the report, revenue for the company’s main chicken production segment in 2020 decreased by 5%, to $1.298 billion, and gross profit due to a decrease in meat prices by 30%, to $191 million, EBITDA by 31%, to $194 million. In the fourth quarter, sales in this segment decreased by 3%, to $328 million, while gross profit and EBITDA due to higher prices for cereals fell 66.7%, to $15 million and $14 million, respectively.
In the crop production segment, MHP’s revenue fell by half in 2020 due to a lower harvest, to $134 million, but due to price increases, gross profit increased 3.2 times to $94 million, and EBITDA by 38%, to $150 million.
In meat processing, sales over 2020 decreased by 3%, to $144 million, while gross profit and EBITDA remained at the same level of $19 million and $20 million, respectively. In the fourth quarter, revenue in this segment decreased by 10%, to $38 million, gross profit by 44%, to $5 million and EBITDA by 38%, to $5 million.
At the same time, the company managed to achieve significant improvement in the performance of Slovenian Perutnina Ptuj and its operations in Croatia and Serbia, which are reported as a European operating segment. Its revenue in 2020 increased by 24%, to $335 million, gross profit by 21%, to $93 million, EBITDA by 25%, to $55 million. In the fourth quarter, sales increased by 12%, to $87 million, gross profit by 5%, to $22 million, and EBITDA remained at $15 million.
In terms of other indicators, the company said that its capital investments in 2020 decreased by 30%, to $79 million, available cash from $341 million to $218 million, and net debt increased from $1.139 billion to $1.244 billion.
In its forecast, MHP said the prospects for the development of poultry farming in 2021 will be very difficult, given the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, weak economic conditions, high feed prices, a very active winter season for bird flu and global oversupply, however the company is confident in its business.
“Transformation to a culinary company: MHP is expanding its focus. The experience of global poultry producers supports MHP’s strategic shift to a culinary company. Moreover, we are transforming our relationship with retail, HoReCa and franchisees in order to reach more customers and meet their evolving needs by providing them with new safe and high quality products. Current challenges have led us to accelerate this strategic shift,” the company said in the report.
The company said that its continued vertical integration provides a significantly lower cost base compared to peers in the industry, as well as improved quality control and better biosecurity of poultry stock, and added that the demand for poultry meat is growing globally along with the decline in demand for red meat.
With regard to possible mergers and acquisitions (M&A), the agricultural holding indicates that it continues to monitor global developments and the potential for mergers and acquisitions. “MHP is well positioned to become an active participant in the ongoing consolidation of the industry,” the company said in the report.
MHP is the largest chicken producer in Ukraine. It is also engaged in the production of cereals, sunflower oil, meat products. MHP supplies the European market with chilled half-carcasses of chickens, which are processed, including at its factories in the Netherlands and Slovakia.
The UNIT.City innovation park, together with the official importer of BMW and MINI in Ukraine AWT Bavaria, are launching the U.Go service – a new model of short-term rental (car sharing) of electric vehicles for the park residents, the press service of the importing company reported.
UNIT.City is reportedly serving as a testing ground for this pilot project, and Kyiv is the first city to test the new car-sharing model.
The service can now be used by residents and employees of the UNIT.City park, who have a driver’s license and have more than two years of driving experience.
