Prime Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Honcharuk has said he hopes that a large-scale building of roads will start on March 1, 2020.
“Since March 1, a large-scale building [of roads] to start…This year it is necessary to prepare for the most early start of the season. We, in turn, will try to complete all the procedures by this moment,” he said during a press conference Roads UA 2020 in Kyiv on Monday.
He also asked the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) to favor this.
“We know that there are certain difficulties, that someone is doing stupid things: disputes every second tender in the Antimonopoly Committee. We ask the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine do not accept such a model of behavior. Respond by the quick, honest work,” Honcharuk added.
Ukrainian pianist Nadia Shpachenko has received the prestigious Grammy Music Award, the award website reports. The pianist’s album “The Poetry of Places,” which was recorded with Joan Pearce Martin, Nick Terry and Corey Hills, won the category “Best Classical Compendium.”
Nadia Shpachenko was born in Ukraine. In 1991, she moved to Israel with her mother, and in 1994 she moved to the United States to earn a bachelor’s degree in classical music in Cambridge. She her piano classes from the age of five, and by the age of 13, she gained recognition as a pianist and composer, performing with the Kharkiv Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and taking the second place in the All-Ukrainian competition of young composers.
Shpachenko received the title of Doctor of Musical Arts and Master at the University of Southern California, and graduated with excellent marks. Among her teachers are John Perry in Los Angeles, Victor Rosenbaum in Boston, Victor Derevyanko in Israel, and Serafima Schwartz in Ukraine.
The Boryspil international airport from January 26, 2020 started temperature screening of passengers arriving directly from China, specialists and equipment have been prepared, the Health Ministry of Ukraine has reported. “From January 26, screening of passengers arriving directly from China will begin at the Boryspil airport. The sanitary-quarantine department specialists have already been trained and equipped with infrared thermometers,” the ministry said on its Facebook page on January 25 in the evening.
It is also reported that on Saturday the World Health Organization (WHO) updated screening guidelines at points of entry into countries where the spreading of a new coronavirus has not yet been recorded.
“Previous WHO experience has shown that introducing body temperature screening to identify potential suspected cases of coronavirus required significant investments and was not effective enough. However, during the outbreak of coronavirus 2019-nCoV, most cases of illness at airports were detected precisely because of temperature screening. This method reduces the risk of introducing the coronavirus into the country,” the Health Ministry said.
Also, to minimize the risk of coronavirus infection, WHO recommends routine SARS prevention activities.
As reported, a pneumonia outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan began in December 2019, as a result of a new strain of coronavirus.
The grain storage facilities in Ukraine allow storing around 60-65% of harvest, Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture Taras Vysotsky has said.
“The implementation of the agrarian potential of Ukraine needs to modernize the existing logistic infrastructure and further development. Today, grain storage facilities allow storing some 60-65% of the harvested crop. The total one-time grain, leguminous and oilseeds storage capacity is 45.4 million tonnes,” he wrote on his Facebook page on Friday.
According to the deputy minister, the shortage of storage facilities is observed in all regions. According to the ministry, under the government program to support agricultural producers in 2019, 55 producers from 16 regions received government support in the direction of partial reimbursement of the cost of building and reconstructing grain storage and processing enterprises, the total amount of compensation exceeded UAH 526 million.
“Thanks to the support, an additional 61 facilities with a throughput capacity of about 1 million tonnes were obtained and more than 500 jobs were created,” Vysotsky said.
Astarta agricultural and industrial holding, the largest sugar producer in Ukraine, has invested $71 million in the development of grain infrastructure under the Grain of Astarta investment program launched in 2014. According to a posting of the company on its Facebook page, over the past two years Astarta build four silos in Poltava region and bought Krasyliv silo in Khmelnytsky region.
“The grain infrastructure development program, launched by the company in 2014, has so far been implemented in the form of seven modern (both newly-built and modernized) silos with a total capacity of 550,000 tonnes, as well as its own fleet of 200 railway cars,” the agricultural holding said.
In general, since the beginning of the program, the company has invested $71 million in this direction.
“Starting Grain of Astarta as a program for expanding facilities for our own needs, we have reached the level of providing services and developing eco-systems that are formed around our infrastructure facilities. And we do not stop there. We see great prospects for development and are considering new partnership projects in Chernihiv and Poltava regions,” Astarta Executive Officer Valeriy Sokolenko said.
Astarta is a vertically integrated agribusiness holding operating in eight regions of Ukraine. The holding includes eight sugar factories, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of 243,000 hectares and dairy farms, a biogas plant and a soybean processing complex in Poltava region.
Businessman Oleksandr Yaroslavsky seeks to enter the road repair market, he told reporters on the sidelines of the Roads UA 2020 conference held in Kyiv on Monday.
“We want to participate in road construction. In all regions,” he said.
Yaroslavsky announced plans to create a Ukrainian-foreign company, but refused to disclose the details.
“We invited some foreign partners, my old friends, and we will be engaged in construction work with a joint company. We will try to participate in the construction and reconstruction of roads. We hope this year,” the businessman said.
He also said that he was interested in participating in the construction of airfields.
“We may go to an airport with this joint company,” he said.
Yaroslavsky is the owner of the DCH group.
