Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Vadym Prystaiko and State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka Ravinatha Aryasinha, during the 74th session of the UN General Assembly, signed an agreement on visa waiver of citizens who use diplomatic, service or official passports.
“Prystaiko and Aryasinha have signed an agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Government of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka on visa waiver for citizens who use diplomatic, service or official passports,” the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine reported on Friday.
The parties discussed topical issues on the agenda of relations between the two countries, emphasizing the importance of intensifying political dialogue and enhancing interaction within international organizations. Issues of protection of interests of citizens of Ukraine and Sri Lanka were separately discussed.
Electricity production by all power plants of state-owned enterprise Energoatom in January-August 2019 increased by 0.8% (by 428.7 million kWh) compared to the same period last year, to 54.698 billion kWh.
According to the press service of the company, the plan for production of electricity for the specified period in 2019 was exceeded by 0.6%.
The power plants of the state enterprise supplied 51.385 billion kWh of electricity to the market against 51.025 billion kWh in January-August 2018.
The share of Energoatom in the overall structure of electricity production in the country amounted to 53.1%, which is 1.1 percentage points more than January-August 2018.
The volume of capital investments for the eight months amounted to UAH 6.928 billion against UAH 6.926 billion for the same period a year earlier. The financing of capital investments amounted to UAH 9.655 billion against UAH 7.878 billion respectively.
Energoatom transferred UAH 8.997 billion to the budgets of all levels, insurance payments amounted to UAH 1.709 billion.
The installed capacity utilization factor of the company’s nuclear power plants amounted to 67.6%, which is 0.5 p.p. more than in January-August 2018.
In January-August, nine violations were recorded in the operation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants (13 in the first eight months of 2018).
The European Business Association (EBA) has asked Head of the Verkhovna Rada committee for transport and infrastructure Yuriy Kysyl to support a bill proposing new legislation for the taxi market, the press service of the EBA said on Friday. “The adoption of a new model for regulating the taxi market is a significant step in introducing European standards into the life of Ukrainians. We hope that the new law on taxis will allow us to remove transportation from the shadows, get rid of outdated regulations and instead introduce clear and equal rules of the game for market players. For the first time, Ukraine has approached the reform of the taxi services market in such a comprehensive and professional manner that it is undoubtedly a positive signal,” the press service said, citing Advocacy Team Leader at the EBA Igor Gotsyk.
According to the report, the bill proposes the cancellation of obtaining a license for the domestic transportation of passengers by taxi, while at the same time the obligation is introduced to notify the State Service of Ukraine for Transport Safety, which also provides the functions of the public register of road carriers.
In addition, according to the document, an individual road carrier is not required to register as private entrepreneur. He also does not need to draw up a contract on transportation for each service in paper. He can only draw up a contract in electronic form.
“Given the thoroughness of the above-mentioned provisions and the importance of their adoption in order to increase the transparency of operations by carriers who operate road passenger transport services, we expect fruitful cooperation and hope that the bill will be adopted this autumn,” the EBA said.
The draft law on legalization of gambling, which is being discussed within the framework of the working group of the Verkhovna Rada, after its adoption could give a significant impetus to the development of five-star hotels and encourage investors to open new facilities in this segment, Managing Partner of ArtBuild Hotel Group Oleksiy Yevchenko believes.
“A significant impetus to the development of hotel business will be provided by the adoption of the law on gambling, which will regulate the placement of casinos in five-star hotels for a certain number of rooms depending on the region. Hotels for casinos could appear both in large cities and in smaller towns, causing the active development and growth of a certain region,” he said at the conference “Hotel Real Estate in Ukraine: Development Prospects.”
According to the expert, the bill has a chance to be adopted before the end of 2019 or at the beginning of 2020. According to the document, casinos will be placed in five-star hotels with over 200 rooms in Kyiv, and over 120 rooms in Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipro and Odesa, and from 100 rooms in all other cities.
“This will only spur the development of the five-star segment. The question is whether we have the key targeted audience here and whether there are enough tourists to fill this particular segment. In Kyiv, the occupancy of five-star hotels is on average 38%. And if another five to ten objects are built, as there are already real investors interested in this, with the number of rooms exceeding 200, with large places for organizing casinos, what will happen to the economy of these hotels?” the expert said.
He said the draft law under consideration provides for a mandatory requirement for hotels: the availability of 500 square meters of free space for a casino.
“Out of about 70 five-star hotels in Ukraine, only eight to ten hotels have such a large free space. Therefore, it is very important how the bill is adopted,” the expert stated.
DEVELOPMENT, FIVE-STAR HOTELS, GAMBLING BUSINESS, LEGALIZATION
On September, 28-29 the «Kyivan Rus Park» invites the lovers and owners of dogs to a bright show-program. The exhibition-competition of pets, as well as the horse shows, medieval amusements and master-classes will be waiting for the guests. In addition, horse riding, tasty dishes prepared on open fire, merry games, round dances and a lot of interesting things from the life of a real medieval city will bring you a lot of fun.
Ancient Kyiv opens at 10:00, the program will start at 13:30 and will last approximately till 19:00.
Entrance ticket price: for adults – 200 Uah., for pensioners and students – 150 Uah., for schoolchildren – 80 Uah., for preschool children – for free.
Ancient Kyiv in the «Kyivan Rus Park» is located in Kyiv region, Obukhiv district, the vill. Kopachiv.
Route taxis leave from Kyiv from the «Vydybitchi» metro station.
Details on the website www.parkkyivrus.com
The Interfax subscribers can save money with the “openbusiness-20” promo code for a 20%-discount for a full price adult ticket to the Principality of Kyivan Rus:
– by previous order by tel.: +38 044 461-99-37, +38 050 385-20-35
– or at the cash desk at the entrance to the «Kyivan Rus Park».
More than half of Ukrainians do not approve of the lifting of the moratorium on agricultural land sales, and 64% believe that this issue should be resolved in a referendum, according to a study conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS)on September 16-19, 2019. According to the survey, 52% of respondents do not approve of the instructions of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to lift the moratorium (ban) on the sale of agricultural land until October this year and the introduction of land sale until December this year. Some 35% of those surveyed are positive about this order, while 13% of respondents had difficulty answering the question.
Some 64% of respondents believe that the issue of agricultural land sale should be solved only in an all-Ukrainian referendum, and 26% believe that the issue should be resolved by the president, the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers, while 10% of respondents could not answer the question.
Director General of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) Volodymyr Paniotto noted that the number of opponents of land sale has decreased over the year – 72% were against the land sale in November 2018.
The survey was conducted by CATI method (computer-assisted telephone interviews) based on a random sampling of mobile phone numbers. The sample is representative of the adult population of Ukraine (18 years and older). The sample does not include territories temporarily not controlled by the authorities of Ukraine – the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. During the survey, 1,500 interviews were conducted. The sampling error with a probability of 0.95 does not exceed 2.6%.
