Belarusian Belavia airline from April 30, 2020 will increase the frequency of direct flights from/to Kharkiv to/from Minsk from five to seven a week.
According to a posting on the Facebook page of the Kharkiv airport, if flights between cities are currently operated on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, then from April 30 they will be operated daily. Flight time is 1 hour and 12 minutes.
The cost of a one-way ticket excluding baggage starts from $80.
According to the data of the electronic census, population of Ukraine totals 37.289 million, minister of the Cabinet of Ministers Dmytro Dubilet reported.
“Ukraine amounts 37.289 million people,” Dubilet said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.
Estimates of the amount of the present population are as of December 1, 2019. The assessment does not cover the uncontrolled territories of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The margin of error does not exceed 2.86%.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, called on international investors to become “architects of the success of the new Ukraine.” “Ukraine should become an investment mecca of Eastern and Central Europe. The main driver for economic development is the ability to make profit. And we are one of the few countries that now allows earning such a high return on invested capital. Today we are underinvested and disliked,” he said.
Zelensky called on investors to invest in Ukraine.
“Today, the pragmatic and petrified world is sorely lacking a miracle. And the world economy, which is on the verge of a new global crisis, needs an economic miracle. Ukraine is exactly the place where miracles happen. And my goal is to make Ukraine appear in textbooks next to the cases of Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Therefore, join in!” he said.
The president pointed out that the new Ukrainian authorities are creating equal rules of the game for everyone, cleansing the judicial system, digitalizing processes, implementing vital reforms and adopting vital laws.
“We have everything to become a successful country. Favorable climatic conditions, a very favorable geographic location, an inexhaustible agricultural and industrial potential, and our most valuable resource are incredibly creative and very talented people who are in the top 50 in the Human Capital Index rating,” he noted.
Work on a possible deal to acquire Credit Dnipro Bank by Oleksandr Yaroslavsky from Victor Pinchuk is ongoing. “Work is ongoing. It will be a good business, if you manage to buy. There is experience, you know that we probably have the most successful experience in working in the financial sector with UkrSibbank,” Yaroslavsky told Interfax-Ukraine at the Ukrainian House in Davos, organized by the Pinchuk Foundation, WNISEF and Horizon Capital.
According to him, with the proper operation of the bank, the need for its constant capitalization by the shareholder will disappear.
Yaroslavsky also said that he was ready to take part in large privatization, but so far the facilities offered by the State Property Fund have a lot of problems. “Everything sounds so good, but when you know the inside situation, it doesn’t look very good,” the businessman said.
In particular, with the case of the United Mining and Chemical Company, he pointed out the need to deal with property issues, in the case of the Odesa Port-Side Plant, there is a debt of $250 million to the structures of Dmytro Firtash.
“Elektrotyazhmash is also an interesting enterprise, but it is unclear in what condition it is. And 85% of the market is Russia,” Yaroslavsky added.
Myronivsky Hliboproduct (MHP), certified in the EU, has stopped exports of poultry to these countries as of January 23, the group has said.
“All MHP production facilities continue to operate as normal and have begun to take all necessary steps according to the export sales diversification strategy approved by the group’s management. MHP continues to adhere to existing quality and biosafety standards and sells its products both on the local market and in the countries, where there is no export ban,” MHP said.
The group said that now the production team of specialists and veterinarians at the MHP facilities is following a clear plan to counteract bird flu and is taking all necessary measures to prevent potential outbreaks at all MHP production sites.
According to the group, at present the state veterinary authorities of Ukraine are in close cooperation with the EU authorities in order to coordinate and take all necessary steps to resolve the issue of opening the market and come to a final agreement on the implementation of detailed regionalization, which has not yet been officially ratified.
MHP said that in 2019 about 30% of the group’s total exports were sent to the EU. In January-September 2019, MHP increased poultry exports by 26%, to 269,670 tonnes. In 2018, exports grew by 30%, to 286,800 tonnes.
Ukrainian enterprises in 2019 decreased exports of ferrous scrap metal by 87.2% compared to 2018, to 42,182 tonnes.
According to customs statistics released by the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, exports of scrap metal in monetary terms fell by 88.9%, to $11.781 million.
In 2019, the country increased imports of scrap metal in kind by 17.2% compared to 2018, to 49,934 tonnes. Imports in monetary terms decreased 6.4%, to $34.254 million.
Imports of scrap metal for the mentioned period arrived mainly from Turkey (62.55% of deliveries in monetary terms), Russia (28.45%), and the Netherlands (2.23%); and major exports were shipped to Turkey (85.88%), the Netherlands (6.27%) and Germany (5.37%).
Ukrainian metal companies in 2019 imported 2,502 tonnes of ferrous products obtained by direct reduction of iron ore (HS code 7203) – hot briquetted iron (HBI), which is a substitute for pig iron and scrap metal for $811,000. The HBI was imported from Russia for a total value of $810,000 and China for $1,000.
