Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Francesco La Camera said at the opening of the tenth International Renewable Energy Investment Forum that IRENA is committed to support Ukraine in this sphere, the press service of the State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine has reported.
“To diversify energy is quite realistic. We are ready to continue supporting Ukraine along this path,” La Camera said.
According to him, in particular, IRENA experts advised Ukraine in developing the legislative framework for auctions. As the experience of various countries of the world shows, auctions are an effective tool to reduce the cost of electricity generated by renewable facilities.
La Camera said that the world is increasing the pace of transition to “clean” energy: “Over the past seven years, we have seen an annual increase in the volume of new clean energy capacities that exceed the capacities of conventional energy. In 2018, 170 GW of new “green” energy projects were introduced in the world,” he said.
“At the same time, clean technologies are becoming cheaper. According to experts, in the future, solar power plants and wind farms will become more profitable sources of electricity than conventional energy facilities,” La Camera added.
In addition, IRENA experts analyzed the development status of renewable energy in the countries of Southeast Europe. It is reported that the region operates 127 GW of capacities that generate “clean” energy. By 2030, these figures can be increased by almost five times and reach 620 GW.
During the forum, the IRENA director-general met with Prime Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Honcharuk. The parties discussed the investment attractiveness of renewable energy and plans for further development in the country.
La Camera recalled that “green” projects have many advantages and simultaneously address the energy, environmental, economic and social issues of communities.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has approved a resolution on qualified providers of electronic trust services placed on the trust list under a proposal of the certificate authority, the NBU has reported on its website. According to the report, this document was drawn up with the aim of improving the quality, convenience and speed of customer service by banks, as well as to ensure compliance of the processes of providing electronic trust services with European and international standards. The resolution establishes the conditions for obtaining the status of a qualified provider and determines the requirements for the rules of its work, the composition of employees of the qualified provider and their functional responsibilities, as well as the requirements for managing access to information resources of the qualified provider. In addition, the document defines the requirements for the physical environment used by the qualified provider in the process of providing qualified electronic trust services and for ensuring the continuity of services provided by the qualified provider, as well as for managing keys of the qualified provider and using cryptographic information protection tools.
The new internal regulations of the certification center in order to bring the conditions of its activities in line with the requirements of the law on electronic trust services are outlined in the document. The document defines a list of qualified electronic trust services, the provision of which is provided by a certification center; organizational structure of the certification center; the procedure for entering of information/changes about providers into the trust list; certificate policy for the provision of qualified electronic trust services by the certification center; position of certification practices during the provision of a certified electronic trust service by a certification center.
The National Bank also canceled irrelevant legal acts regulating the activities of the NBU certification center and bank key certification centers in accordance with the terms defined in the law on electronic digital signature. The changes are outlined in NBU No. 137 resolution dated November 21, 2019 on the recognition of certain legal acts of the National Bank of Ukraine as invalid.
The Danish pig breeding company Goodvalley (previously Danosha) with assets in Ukraine, Poland and Russia, saw DKK 120 million in net profit in January-September 2019, which is 1.8 times more than a year ago. According to a company report, revenue over the period grew by 1.7%, to DKK 1.12 billion, adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) fell by 2.6%, to DKK 185 million.
In Q3 2019, the net profit of the company was DKK 26 million compared with DKK 21 million of net loss a year ago. Revenue grew by 9.8%, to DKK 414 million thanks to the increase in sales of live pigs at higher average price.
Adjusted EBITDA in Q3 2019 doubled, to DKK 71 million.
Ukrainian segment revenue rose to DKK 138 million (DKK 108 million in Q3 2019) thanks to growth in pig prices, while adjusted EBITDA fell to DKK 15 million (DKK 17 million in Q3 2018) due record-low crop yield.
“Our pig production generated strong results in the quarter as we lev¬eraged our recent investments in production capacity, enabling us to sell more live pigs at a higher average price while simultaneously improving operational efficiency slightly. Even though we realised a record-low crop yield from our land in Ukraine in particular and saw the pig price effect partly offset by relatively fixed pork product sales prices, we now expect to reach the high end of our revenue and earnings outlook for the full-year,” CEO Hans Henrik Pedersen said.
Lithuania’s Snaige, the sole manufacturer of household refrigerators and freezers in the Baltic states, saw a 16.7% rise in revenue in Ukraine in January-September 2019 year-over-year, to EUR 5.38 million. According to the published annual statements of the company, the loss of Snaige in Ukraine for this period amounted to EUR 3,000.
In total, Snaige’s total revenue for the first nine months of this year amounted to EUR 25.96 million compared to EUR 26.98 for the same period last year. The largest sales were in Western Europe totaling EUR 10.22 million (EUR 10.73 million last year).
In Ukraine, in 2018, Snaige posted a EUR 3,000 loss, while in 2017 net profit was EUR 1,000, revenue decreased 20.8%, to EUR 6.01 million.
Founded in 1963, Snaige is currently controlled by Polair, a Russian manufacturer of refrigeration equipment. Its production capacity is 550,000 refrigerators and freezers per year.
Snaige-Ukraine LLC was established in 2002.
Germany’s STADA pharmaceutical company is acquiring pharmaceutical business of prescription and OTC preparations of Biopharma blood product manufacturer. According to a STADA press release on Monday, Biopharma’s pharmaceutical business will become an integral part of STADA in Ukraine and has strong growth potential in the production of high-quality prescription and OTC drugs. The agreement provides for the acquisition of production facilities in the city of Bila Tserkva (Kyiv region).
Biopharma shareholders will preserve the company’s plasma processing business and focus on its development both in Ukraine and abroad. To acquire it STADA must obtain permission to merge in Ukraine.
The transaction is expected to close in December 2019.
STADA’s Ukrainian business will be led by newly appointed CEO Borys Labensky.
Biopharma President Kostyantyn Efymenko, together with partner Vasyl Khmelnytsky and financial investors, will focus on developing the Biopharma plasma processing business, developing the new Biopharma plasma fractionator and a network of modern blood collection centers and expanding its presence in international markets.
National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 02/12/19
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
