The trade deficit of Ukraine more than halved by the end of the past 2020 – from $10.22 billion to $4.9 billion, Deputy Minister of Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture, Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka has said.
“In U.S. dollars, exports for the whole year amounted to $49.32 billion, which is 1.70% less than in 2019. In the crisis year, this figure is very good. Particularly positive is the reduction of the trade deficit by more than half from $10.22 billion in 2019 to $4.9 billion,” Kachka wrote on Facebook last week.
He especially noted the dynamics of December, when exports amounted to $4.88 billion, which is $150 million more than in the previous month and $760 million than in December 2019.
“The secret of the December figures is quite simple. All over the world prices for metal and ore are growing at a frantic pace. Exports for the 72nd group in December amounted to $715 million (in November it was $572 million and in December 2019 $522 million),” Kachka wrote.
According to him, the export of ore from Ukraine in 2020 amounted to $4.42 billion, which is 23% more than in 2019, while the indicators of ferrous metallurgy ($7.7 billion) and products from it ($0.88 billion) were less by 12% and 15%, respectively, than in 2019.
In addition, due to a decrease in the harvest, physical grain exports in 2020 were lower than in 2019. “But this decrease in physical exports is offset by a rise in prices,” Kachka said.
Vadim Novinsky’s Smart Holding and Tomas Fiala’s Dragon Capital investment group have signed a sale and purchase agreement for Unex Bank, Smart Holding said on Thursday.
“The parties plan to close the deal during the first quarter of 2021. At the moment, the documents are being approved by the NBU. The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine has already approved the deal,” the release says.
The parties to the agreement are: – Withine Investments LTD (Cyprus) from Smart Holding, Dragon Capital Investments Limited (Cyprus) from Dragon Capital, participating in the transaction together with Ivan Svitek.
The amount of the deal was not disclosed.
According to the NBU, as of October 1, 2020, in terms of total assets, Unex Bank ranked 64th (UAH 796.83 million) among 74 banks operating in the country.
The bank completed nine months of 2020 with a net loss of UAH 22.97 million, which is 3.8 times higher than the loss for the same period last year, including in the third quarter the net loss amounted to UAH 14.67 million against UAH 1.41 million in third quarter of last year.
Bank’s net interest income for nine months of this year decreased by 14.8% – to UAH 68.07 million, and the net commission income – by 21.2%, to UAH 19.3 million.
The release states that Withine Investments LTD (Cyprus) owns 100% of the shares of Unex Bank, and 100% of the shares of Withine Investments, in turn, belong to Smart Investments (CY) Ltd, owned by MP Novinsky.
The Zhytomyr and Lutsk border detachments each received one Landini 5-120 tractor and one Rinieri TRK 200 branch chopper for a total value of more than EUR 100,000.
According to the press service of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, on the eve of the new year, assistance was received from Excelor Holding Group (LLC) as part of the implementation of a joint international technical assistance project with the European Union for provision of equipment for ensuring security and demarcation of the state border between Belarus and Ukraine, vehicles and equipment for border demarcation work.
The technical assistance will be used to carry out demarcation works and engineering arrangement of the Ukrainian-Belarusian section of the border.
Over the past day, on January 1, about 10,000 people arrived in Ukraine, the same number left the country, according to the press service of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine.
“During border control measures, 22 persons were denied entry to Ukraine, of which 16 are potential illegal migrants,” the report says.
Also, 4,300 cars were recorded, of which about 1,000 more cars were moving to Ukraine.
For comparison, on the first day of 2020, some 175,000 people and about 30,000 vehicles were registered at the border. Almost 90 people and 22 potential illegal migrants were not allowed through.
Ukraine will receive the vaccine produced by the Sinovac Biotech Chinese company within 30 days after registration, Health Minister of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov said during a press briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.
“Due to the supply of the vaccine from Sinovac Biotech, we will receive 1.913 million doses of vaccine against coronavirus disease. During the first delivery, some 700,000 doses will arrive in Ukraine, we will receive them within 30 days after the vaccine is registered either in the manufacturing country or in other countries (the United States, UK, EU, Brazil, etc.),” he said.
“The company is to release the results of clinical trials in Brazil on January 7. It is stipulated that the vaccine must have an efficiency of at least 70%. Negotiations with the manufacturer have lasted since September 2020. The agreement was signed by the Lekhim Ukrainian pharmaceutical company,” the minister said.
According to Stepanov, the third phase of clinical trials was done in Brazil (13,060 patients), Indonesia (1,600 patients) and Turkey (1,325 patients). The efficiency in Indonesia was 97%, in Turkey it was 91%. The FDA recommends that COVID-19 vaccines should be more than 50% effective.
The minister said that all vaccines purchased for government funds will be free for all citizens of Ukraine.
In addition, the head of the Health Ministry said that the department is at the final stage of signing contracts with other vaccine manufacturing companies, and also intends to increase the number of vaccines that will be supplied to Ukraine as part of the COVAX initiative.
Dynamics of changes in discount rate of NBU.
NBU
