The pharmaceutical company Pfizer will soon provide documents for registration of a vaccine against coronavirus (COVID-19) disease in Ukraine, Deputy Minister of Health, Chief Sanitary Doctor of Ukraine Viktor Liashko said during a press briefing in Kyiv on Friday.
“Yesterday we had a telephone conversation with Pfizer headquarters. We were assured that all documents for vaccine registration in Ukraine will be submitted in the near future. The vaccine will be used only after registration,” he said.
Liashko recalled that vaccination in Ukraine would be free and voluntary.
“Vaccinations will be carried out by mobile teams, consisting of two nurses, a doctor, a registrar and a driver. They will provide organized professional teams [medical institutions, social institutions, and military units] with vaccinations at the first stage […] From February 5, we start medical trainings for doctors and regional coordinators to ensure logistical and coordination cooperation between the national, regional and vaccination rooms,” the deputy minister said.
At the same time, he said that the country had the necessary capacities for storing vaccines.
“We have capacities for storing vaccines with a temperature regime of minus 80 degrees Celsius and a temperature regime of plus 2 degrees Celsius. As for the latter, the state-owned enterprise Ukrvaktsyna can store about 30 million doses of vaccines. There are 25 warehouses at the regional level where it is possible to store the three-month need for vaccine. In addition, there are 490 district storage points and refrigeration equipment at vaccination points. We will closely monitor that the cold chain is observed,” Liashko said.
“At the same time, we have submitted an application to the European Investment Bank and we want to update all the refrigeration equipment in the vaccination rooms – even the one used for routine immunization,” he said.
Liashko said that citizens of Ukraine who are in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea will also be provided with access to free and voluntary vaccination at vaccination points, which will be located in the territory controlled by Ukraine.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has raised the e-limit of investments abroad for individuals from EUR 100,000 to EUR 200,000 per year, the press service of the regulator has said.
The corresponding changes were approved by the decree of the NBU board of February 3, 2021 (No. 14), which was posted on the National Bank’s website and comes into force on February 5.
The report specifies that the e-limit has been increased for investments abroad, placing funds on their own foreign accounts, transferring funds under a life insurance contract and providing loans to non-residents.
“This decision in the direction of currency liberalization will not have a significant impact on the functioning of the currency market of Ukraine, including taking into account the fact that individuals have been able to buy non-cash foreign currency for more than a year without any obligations and grounds,” the press service said citing Deputy Governor of the NBU Yurii Heletii.
He noted that in 2020, individuals within the e-limit transferred about EUR274 million abroad, which is less than the average daily trading volume in the interbank foreign exchange market.
The NBU recalled that the complete removal of the e-limit for individuals to make investments abroad is one of the priorities of the National Bank, provided for by the roadmap of currency liberalization. At the same time, the regulator indicated that this will become possible only after the final adoption and implementation of a package of bills to counter BEPS (base erosion and profitshifting).
As reported, since December 18, 2019, the National Bank has increased the annual e-limit on individual foreign exchange transactions by individuals from EUR 50,000 to EUR 100,000 per year.
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine at the first reading adopted bill No. 4355 on amendments to the law “On the Unified State Demographic Register and Documents Confirming the Citizenship of Ukraine, Certifying the Identity or his Special Status”, which increases the status of using digital passports in the Diia application at the legal level.
Some 303 MPs voted for the document at a plenary session on Thursday.
“Ukrainians will be able to use digital passports on a par with paper ones. There will be no more options not to accept Diia anymore,” Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov commented on the adoption of the bill on his Facebook page.
He said that the relevant amendments to the said law were developed by the Ministry of Digital Transformation together with the Committee for Digital Transformation. “Prior to that, the use of passports in Diia was regulated by a decree of the Cabinet of Ministers,” Fedorov said. This bill also defines terminology, in particular the use of electronic passports.
The bill gives definitions to e-passport – a passport of a citizen of Ukraine in the form of a card and an e-passport for traveling abroad.
According to the bill, an e-passport can be presented on the territory of Ukraine for identification and confirmation of citizenship. However, this rule does not apply when crossing the state border and entering/leaving the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
According to the document, electronic copies of an e-passport and an e-passport for traveling abroad can be submitted and used as copies of a passport of a citizen of Ukraine, a passport of a citizen of Ukraine for traveling abroad.
An e-passport, an e-passport for traveling abroad are issued free of charge at the request of a person who has a passport of a citizen of Ukraine or a passport of a citizen of Ukraine for traveling abroad, which are issued using the means of the unified state demographic register.
An overstated tariff for energy from renewable sources (RES) in comparison with the market rate leads to significant and problematic payments to investors for Ukraine, which are estimated at $ 10-20 billion until 2029, acting Energy Minister Yuriy Vitrenko has said.
“If to look at the difference between the feed-in tariff and the market price, at least now, and multiply this by conservative estimates of production from renewable sources and multiply this by the term of the feed-in tariff – until 2029, then the amount of compensation from the state budget to investors in green energy will be from $ 10 billion to $ 20 billion,” he said while discussing the economic strategy until 2030.
Vitrenko noted that the feed-in tariff is several times higher than the market price.
“For a developing country like Ukraine, $ 10-20 billion is a significant amount, which is a problem,” he stressed.
The minister also criticized the current system of payments through the energy system operator Ukrenergo, which has no interest in paying for renewable energy sources, since their uneven generation brings it additional problems. According to Vitrenko, such payments should be made through the state budget as a public good in the form of clean energy.
A number of European Business Association (EBA) member companies, which “have Chinese roots,” are concerned about the imposition of sanctions by Ukraine against the Chinese shareholders of PJSC Motor Sich and will temporarily refrain from investing, EBA Executive Director Anna Derevyanko has said.
Chinese investors have temporarily put on hold all the issues related to investing in the country, she said at a meeting of the Global Economic Review of Ukraine association, when its participants raised the issue of these sanctions and their possible consequences for trade and economic relations with China.
According to Andriy Horokhov, the director general of UMG Investments, in 2020 Ukraine was lucky with the conjuncture in agriculture and metallurgy, and a large part of the products of these industries went to China. He added that the Chinese market is also expected to grow in 2021.
“I understand for sure that you have to be more careful with a trading partner with a turnover of about $ 10 billion,” he said.
“If suddenly we make mistakes in this direction, then we will need to understand where we will compensate for our sales markets, given the situation in Europe and the United States and the uncertainty with the pandemic. I hope there will be wise and balanced decisions here, and people will professionally approach this issue,” he said.
The Verkhovna Rada Committee on State Power, Local Self-Government, Regional Development and Urban Planning has supported the renaming of Novhorodske, Bakhmutsky district, Donetsk region, to New York, said Deputy Head of the Committee Oleksandr Kachura (Servant of the People faction).
“Today, at a meeting of the committee of state power and local self-government, it was decided to rename the urban-type settlement Novhorodske, Bakhmutsky district of Donetsk region, to New York,” the deputy wrote on the Telegram channel.
He also noted that the decision was made “on the basis of a motion from Donetsk military-civil administration: the appeal says that this is the historical name of the settlement, which was used until 1951.”
