Thai authorities will not impose a vaccination certificate requirement for foreign tourists to enter the country, announced January 7, Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said Monday.
The certificate requirement was supposed to take effect Monday and remain in effect until at least the end of January. However, Charnvirakul told reporters that proof of vaccination would not be required because all countries in the world sufficiently immunize their citizens. Under the new government decision, unvaccinated tourists will be able to enter Thailand without restrictions.
Thailand’s civil aviation authority said Saturday that starting Monday, Jan. 9, all arriving foreigners will have to prove they have been vaccinated or have had coronavirus within the past six months. This announcement was made on the eve of the opening of the borders by China, which since Jan. 8 has abolished PCR tests and quarantine for those entering.
Darnytsa (Kyiv) pharmaceutical company in 2022 slightly reduced the production of drugs in physical terms – from 181 mln packs in 2021 to 173 mln packs in 2022, as the company informed Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
At the same time, according to its press release, Darnitsa occupies 15.7% of the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market, twice as much as its closest competitor.
“If in 2021 every seventh pack of drugs sold in pharmacies was made by “Darnitsa”, then in 2022 it is every sixth pack,” – according to the press release.
In total, in 2022 the company produced about 19 million packages of ampoules, 9 million packages of infusion solutions and 130 million packages of tablets and capsules.
At the same time, it is noted that “Darnitsa” has not stopped working since the first days of the full-scale war. In March it produced 60% of the pre-war volume of drugs, and in April it returned to pre-war production volumes in full.
PJSC “Pharmaceutical company “Darnitsa” is the leader of Ukrainian pharmaceutical market in physical terms. The company has been on the market for more than 90 years and manufactures 180 brands of drugs in 15 different forms. Strategic directions of portfolio development – cardiology, neurology, pain management.
The company was founded in 1930. According to the Uniform State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs, the company’s ultimate beneficiary is Gleb Zagori.
The coke-making division of the Kametstal plant of Metinvest Mining and Metallurgical Group (formerly Dneprovsky Coke Chemical Plant, DKHZ, Kamenskoye, Dnipropetrovsk Region) has resumed operations after being forced to stop due to power supply restrictions as a result of massive enemy shelling.
According to the company’s press release, coke oven batteries No.1 and No.5 resumed their work at the beginning of 2023 and started producing blast furnace coke.
It is noted that during the forced downtime the subdivision specialists systematically prepared the equipment for resumption of work. One of the important stages – preparation for putting into operation the equipment evacuated to “Kametstal” from Avdiivka Coke Plant (ACP), which is in cold storage because of combat operations.
At Metallurgical Plant the project was realized, directed to the delivery and preparation for work in coke-chemical division of the quenching car, earlier exploited at PJSC “AVDIIVKA COKE”. The equipment is intended for transportation of hot coke after its dispensing from coking chambers to the quenching section and then to the sorting section, where coke is distributed by fractions.
According to the report specialists of “Metinvest-Promservice”, who carried out dismantling and the following cleaning of quenching car, took part in project realization together with workers of Kametstal and Avdiivka coke-chemical plant. Acquired equipment makes it possible to create a reserve for the working car and provides for its repair to improve reliability and safety of operation.
“Resumption of coke production is a solid foundation for blast furnace production and efficient operation of the metallurgical plant as a whole. Kametstal’s coke specialists are working selflessly and professionally to bring the equipment up to the required technological parameters in January. We also successfully prepared for operation a coke quenching car from AKHZ,” said Deputy Director of Production for Coke and Chemical Division Roman Puris, who is quoted by the press service.
At the moment, among other things, production of ammonium sulfate is resumed in the subdivision, desulfurization shop, and in the near future the benzene department is going to start working. Thus, the whole technological chain of coke-chemical production at Kametstal will be up and running, the statement explains.
“Kametstal” was created on the basis of PJSC “Dneprovsky Coke Chemical Plant” (DCCP) and the CEC of PJSC “Dneprovsky Metallurgical Plant” (DMK).
According to the report of the parent company of Metinvest Group for 2020, Metinvest B.V. (Netherlands) owned 100% of DKHZ shares.
On Friday 11 vessels with 313.5 thousand tons of agricultural products left the ports of “Big Odessa” after three days of bad weather, when there was no traffic of vessels, said the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine.
“At once three bulk carriers are heading to African countries: the Lady Litel with 31 thousand tons of wheat for Libya, the East Wind 1 with 25 thousand tons for Tunisia, and the Lady Hatice with 11 thousand tons of food for Morocco,” the ministry noted on Facebook.
It also reported that the bulk carrier Antheia, chartered by the UN World Food Programme to deliver Ukrainian wheat to Afghanistan, moored in the port of Chornomorsk.
The agency said that in the ports involved in the “grain initiative”, there are 17 ships under processing, they are loaded with more than 519 thousand tons of Ukrainian agricultural products, and another five ships are moving in the “grain corridor” for the loading.
The Ministry of Infrastructure noted that 104 vessels are waiting for the inspection of the Joint Coordinating Centre in the Bosphorus, while there were 98 on January 10 and 95 on December 26.
The agency stressed that for continuous movement in the grain corridor should be held at least 12 inspections per day.
In total, according to the department, since August 1, 644 ships that exported 17.3 million tons of food have left the ports of Greater Odessa.
in January-September 2022, the international vertically integrated steel and pipe company Interpipe cut its capital investments by three times as against the similar period of the last year – to $15 mn from $45 mn.
According to a presentation of the company’s operations for the nine months of last year, capital investments in the period under review amounted to $7mn ($6mn in 9M2021), $8mn in steelmaking and $31mn in pipe production, while there were no investments in railroad operations ($8mn).
We would like to note that the figures for 9M-2022 are unaudited.
As we informed, in January-September 2022, Interpipe earned $185.952 mln, while during the same period last year it amounted to $32.338 mln (5.75 times more). The company made $199.975 mln of profit after tax, compared to $56.505 mln for the first nine months of 2021 (a 3.5 times increase). At the same time, revenues decreased by 9.3% to $686.634 mln. The company increased its free cash flow to $126.476 mln as of September 30, 2022, from $103.007 mln at the end of September 2021.
EBITDA at the end of September 2022 was $123.023 million ($51.508 million for the pipe segment, “minus” $3.287 million for the rail segment, $74.222 million for the steel segment, $580 thousand for other operations), compared to $150.876 million (“minus” $36.040 million, “plus” $15.351 million, $169.483 million and $2.082 million respectively at the end of 2021).
“Interpipe is a Ukrainian industrial company producing seamless pipes and railroad wheels. The company supplies its products to over 80 countries all over the world via a network of commercial offices located in the key markets of the CIS, the Middle East, North America, and Europe. In 2021, the company sold 602 thnd mt of tubes and 174 thnd mt of railroad products. The company sells its railroad products under the KLW brand.
There are about 10 thsd. employees in Interpipe.
The company consists of five industrial assets: “Interpipe Nizhnedneprovsky Tube Rolling Plant (NTZ)”, “Interpipe Novomoskovsk Tube Plant (NMTZ)”, “Interpipe Niko Tube”, “Interpipe Vtormet” and the electric steelmaking complex “Dneprosteel” under the brand name “Interpipe Steel”.
The ultimate owner of Interpipe Limited is Ukrainian businessman Viktor Pinchuk and his family members.
On Friday, 12 bulk carriers with corn, wheat, soybeans and sunflower meal left Ukrainian ports, the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) reports.
“On January 13, twelve vessels left Ukrainian ports, they are transporting a total of 346,356 tonnes of grain and other food within the framework of the Black Sea grain initiative,” the report says.
Two bulk carriers Cuma (70,799 tonnes of corn) and Georgia T (61,252 tonnes of sunflower meal) are heading to China, two vessels Solar (37,205 tonnes of wheat) and Bosphorus King (25,000 tonnes of corn) are heading to Italy. Two more bulk carriers Rio (8,500 tonnes of wheat) and Umit G (4,300 tonnes of wheat) headed for Greece.
The vessel Papua will deliver 29,300 tonnes of soybeans to the Netherlands, the vessel Cape Scott – 28,000 tonnes of corn to Portugal, the vessel New Faith – 26,500 tonnes of corn to Spain.
In addition, two vessels Garnet (33,000 tonnes of corn) and Muzaffer Ana (11,500 tonnes of soybeans) went to Turkey. Lady Hatice will ship 11,000 tonnes of sunflower meal to Morocco.
Five vessels are also being sent to the ports of Ukraine, which passed through the humanitarian corridor on Friday.
The JCC reported that “79 applications for participation in the initiative were submitted.” Ten vessels are awaiting permission to enter the ports of Ukraine, 14 loaded vessels are awaiting departure to their destinations.
“As of January 13, the total tonnage of grain and other agricultural products exported from three Ukrainian ports is 17.3 million tonnes. A total of 1,286 vessels have been allowed to move at the moment: 639 to arrive at Ukrainian ports and 647 to exit them,” the JCC summed up.
