Ukraine’s international reserves as of February 1, 2021, according to preliminary data, fell to $28.821 billion (equivalent), which is $279 million less than at the beginning of January this year, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has said.
“In January, they [the reserves] decreased by 1.1%, primarily due to the repayment of external and internal obligations of the state. At the same time, the intervention of the National Bank in the foreign exchange market and foreign exchange receipts in favor of the government partially counterbalanced the impact of payments for servicing the state debt,” the report says.
The Supreme Court has sided the cassation appeal of Tedis Ukraine against the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine and invalidated the earlier decision of the committee to impose a fine of UAH 3.4 billion on the tobacco distributor.
“Today the Supreme Court put an end to the dispute between Tedis Ukraine and the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, which accused the company of allegedly committing anti-competitive concerted actions and imposed a fine of UAH 3.4 billion. This decision is final and not subject to appeal,” the company said in a press-release on Tuesday.
According to it, the Supreme Court overturned the decisions of the trial court and the court of appeals, made in favor of the committee.
“From the very beginning of this trial, we clearly understood that justice would be on our side and were able to prove it before the highest judicial body of the country,” the company said, quoting Director General Taras Korniyachenko as saying. According to him, the company has been working exclusively in the legal field throughout its ten-year history.
The Supreme Court said in a comment on Tuesday that it had verified the conclusions of the lower courts on the legality and validity of the impugned decision of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, given the statutory limits of authority, but not establishing the actual circumstances of the plaintiff’s behavior. Taking into account the impossibility of bringing any person to justice on the basis of decisions of the Antimonopoly Committee in other cases (without prejudice), without mandatory proof of guilt in each individual case (in each case) and taking into account the erroneous legal qualification of actions of Tedis Ukraine LLC, the Supreme Court upheld the lawsuit,” the court said in the statement.
At the same time, the Supreme Court said that the invalidation of the decision of the Antimonopoly Committee does not deprive this body of the right to conduct a re-inspection in compliance with the requirements of current legislation.
As reported, the committee in October 2019 imposed a fine of UAH 6.5 billion for anticompetitive concerted actions on four tobacco producers and Tedis Ukraine. Philip Morris International (PMI) at the end of last year filed a lawsuit with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID, Washington, DC, the United States) on bilateral investment arbitration against Ukraine in connection with an unfair, in their opinion, fine of the committee. British American Tobacco, which lost an appeal at the end of January, also announced such plans.
Tedis Ukraine is one of the largest Ukrainian distribution companies. The company employs about 2,300 employees. The regional network consists of 32 structural divisions throughout the country. The company covers a retail network of about 45,000 retail points throughout Ukraine.
Transportation of grain by river in Ukraine in 2020 decreased by 27.3% compared to 2019, to 3.5 million tonnes, which is associated with a decrease in the harvest by 13%, to 65.4 million tonnes, a rise in the rail fleet of grain carriers and increased competition among road carriers, Andriy Muravsky, an expert in the river transportation industry, says.
In a review of the industry on Facebook, he pointed out that total shipments by river fleet last year decreased by 5.1% compared to 2019, to 11.8 million tonnes, and the decline in the transportation of grain and fertilizers was partially offset by an increase in construction cargo (more by 12.5%, to 5.8 million tonnes) and metallurgical products (more by 7%).
At the same time, fertilizers continue to enter river ports directly from Bulgaria or Georgia in the holds of river-sea class vessels, and their shipment is carried out to the berths of estuarine ports and to terminals up the Dnipro River, Muravsky said.
According to him, in 2020, competition intensified in offshore transshipment, for example, Nibulon operated the largest floating crane in Ukraine Nibulon Max for a full year. This reloader was launched in the spring of 2019 and allowed Nibulon to increase the volume of cargo transshipment by its own fleet to 4-5 million tonnes per year, the expert said. According to him, other shipping companies plan to purchase their own floating cranes to offer integrated logistics.
Muravsky also said that United Barge Company (UBC) in 2020, for the first time in Ukraine, carried out a ship-to-ship operation to reload sunflower oil from a barge to a sea tanker on the outer roadstead of Mykolaiv port, thereby reducing the freight costs of the entire vessel and was able to avoid calling to another port. Also, UBC for the first time in Ukraine fully loaded a sea tanker with oil from barges without using land terminals, the expert noted.
Primary registrations of new commercial vehicles in Ukraine (including heavy trucks) in January 2021 grew by 6% compared to the same month in 2020, to 901 units, despite sales restrictions due to a two-week lockdown, according to the Ukrautoprom association.
At the same time, as in the previous year, Renault vehicles were leaders with sales growth of almost 36%, to 202 units and a market share of 22% (versus 17.5% in January 2020).
Peugeot was in the second position in the ranking (climbing from the third in January 2020) with registration of 97 vehicles (8% more), and Fiat was third (second a year earlier), which registrations fell by 36%, to 90 units.
Belarusian MAZ trucks increased sales by 22% compared to January last year, to 89 units, and this allowed them to improve their position in the ranking from fifth to fourth, and Ford was also in the top five of the month, with sales January 2020 amounting to 84 units.
According to the association’s statistics, sales of Chinese HOWO trucks rose significantly in January to 40 units compared to eight, and a significant drop was demonstrated by MAN trucks – 7 units versus 51 a year earlier.
In January, Russian brands were registered in Ukraine – GAZ (25 units), UAZ (8 units), KAMAZ (7 units), while Ukrainian KrAZs were not on the list.
The association also cites statistics on bus sales (including minibuses) in Ukraine in January: they grew by 7.1%, to 181 units.
The leader in this segment, as in January last year, was Citroen buses with a 3% increase in sales, to 67 units. Ukrainian Etalon buses with registration of 30 vehicles versus 21 units climbed to the second position in January 2020. At the same time, Ataman buses (manufactured by the Cherkasy Bus Plant), which ranked second a year earlier, dropped to the seventh line of the rating, with registrations falling by 67%, to 8 units.
The initial registrations of Belarusian MAZ buses increased 3.7 times, to 22 units, which allowed the brand to enter the top three, and ZAZ buses with 18 cars (three times more) were fourth.
Volkswagen was also in the top five leaders of the bus market (10 units), which in January 2020 did not register its buses.
European Travel Insurance (Kyiv) in 2020 collected insurance premiums in the amount of UAH 182.440 million, which is 43% less than in 2019.
According to a press release from the insurer, if in 2019 the company insured 1.805 million tourists for the first time, then in 2020 some 825,328 people used its services. The net profit of the insurer after taxation according to the IFRS system in 2020 amounted to UAH 24.497 million.
According to the press release, 2020 has changed the attitude towards travel insurance and its individual types. Thus, there was an increased demand from both tour operators and individual tourists for insurance of financial risks in case of travel cancellation or interruption. If in 2019 such risks were insured by 22% of tourists, then in 2020 some 38% of the total number of insured.
In 2020, the company registered 8,924 insurance events with tourists, the total amount of insurance payments was UAH 68 million. In 2020, the ratio of events with tourists registered by the company also changed towards an increase in the share of requests due to the occurrence of an insured event due to cancellation/interruption of travel.
The total amount of payments in connection with cancellation/interruption of travel in 2020 stood at UAH 19.543 million, in 2019 – some UAH 15.673 million. In total, over the past year, 840 payments were made in connection with the cancellation or interruption of a trip, 498 such payments were in 2019.
The company also notes that the tourism industry is reporting a more than 70% reduction in tourism in 2020. Almost the same drop in international passenger air transportation (approximately 72% of the volume of 2019) is noted by the Ukrainian aviation business.
National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 05/02/21
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
