Cargo transportation operators, in particular Trans Energy, Aurum Trans and Aurum Rail, which are part of Aurum Group industrial and investment group, replenished their own freight car fleet with 94 units in 2019 (including 13 grain carriers and 81 high-sided wagons) for a total of UAH 142.776 million, while in 2018 some 60 cars (including eight grain carriers) were bought for UAH 80.56 million, the group’s press service has said.
“Thus, the total fleet of wagons of these operators amounted to 617 wagons,” the press service told Interfax-Ukraine.
Wagons are produced by Diesel Plant, which is part of the group (Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region).
According to the group’s press release, over the past three years, the group’s transport operators have invested about UAH 250 million in building new high-sided cars and grain hoppers, replenishing their own freight car fleet by 39%.
Aurum Group was registered at the end of 2016. Its core business is mechanical engineering, rail freight transportation, industrial pump engineering, chemical industry, investments in real estate and the agricultural sector.
62% of Ukrainians against land market
KYIV. Feb 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Some 62% of Ukrainians are against the introduction of the agricultural land market in Ukraine, according to a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on February 21-25, 2020.
If the All-Ukrainian referendum on the sale of agricultural land took place next Sunday, 15% of Ukrainians would vote in the referendum “in favor of” the land market, 62% – “against,” and another 18% would not vote.
According to the results of the study, during the period of November 2019 – February 2020, the share of supporters of land sales decreased: 22% in November, 19% in December, and 15% in February.
The survey was conducted using the CATI method (computer-assisted telephone interviews) using a random selection of mobile phone numbers. The sample is representative of the adult population (aged 18 years and older) of Ukraine. The sample does not include territories that are temporarily uncontrolled by the Ukrainian authorities. During the survey, 1,500 interviews were conducted, the sampling error with a probability of 0.95 does not exceed 3%. The data of this study are compared with the results of KIIS surveys, which were conducted from December 15 to December 18, from November 22 to November 25, from November 4 to November 7, from October 9 to October 11, and from September 6 to September 19, 2019.
National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 28/02/20
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
Official rates of banking metals from national bank as of February 28
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
The RDS road construction group invested almost UAH 170 million in the upgrade of its machinery fleet in 2019 and ready to enter the road construction markets of Poland and Romania, the co-owner of the group, Yuriy Shumakher, has said.
“The acquisition of modern machines, mechanisms and vehicles cost the company UAH 167.16 million. For several years now, we have been investing annually about $8 million in the renewal of our fleet of road machines,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, in 2019 the company’s fleet was expanded with 114 units of road machines and equipment.
Shumakher said that RDS uses its own funds, funds borrowed from Ukrainian banks and leasing companies to upgrade its fleet. Also, part of the equipment is bought through financing of manufacturing companies such as Wirtgen and Zeppelin.
The co-owner of the group said that RDS purchases mainly foreign equipment from leaders in modern engineering.
“We have ambitions to participate in tenders abroad,” Shumakher said.
According to him, unlike Ukraine, tenders in Europe have very strict criteria and a mandatory requirement, in particular, is experience in the European Union for at least three to five years.
“We participated in tenders in Moldova several times, but having no experience, we lost. Now, we are trying to analyze the market and participate in tenders in Moldova and Romania. We also plan to try to enter the Polish market as a subcontractor,” the RDS representative said.
According to him, one of the options for entering a Ukrainian company working in the field of road construction a foreign market is to buy a company abroad.
Shumakher said that RDS has been participating in international tenders for five years, working at facilities in Ukraine, which are funded by international institutions.
“We are already taking part in tenders in Ukraine for the money of international institutions. Today, a contract has been signed for the construction of the M-03 road for $12 million provided by the World Bank,” he added.
The Ukrainian group of companies RDS includes Kyivshliakhbud and Rostdorstroy. The core business is construction, reconstruction 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 bases.
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.
First Ukrainian International Bank (FUIB, Kyiv) from March 2 reduces the rates on deposits of individuals in hryvnias by 0.5-1.5 percentage points (p.p.), to 8-12% per annum, depending on the type and term of the deposit.
According to the report on the bank’s website, FUIB will also reduce rates on deposits of individuals in U.S. dollars by 0.2-0.5 p.p. (to 0.3-1.1% per annum) and in euros by 0.1-0.5 p.p. (to 0.2-0.3% per annum).
“The revision of deposit rates is mainly related to the planned reduction in the refinancing rate of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), which is now 11% per annum, and should be reduced to 7% by the end of the year,” the bank explains.
It is specified that interest rates on deposits signed before March 2 will remain unchanged.
FUIB was founded in 1991. The owner of a substantial stake in the bank is Rinat Akhmetov (indirect participation of 100%).
As of January 1, 2020 FUIB ranked seventh in terms of total assets (UAH 63.16 billion) among 75 banks operating in the country, according to the National Bank of Ukraine.
