Modular (small) filling stations are united within the National Association of Petrol Retailers to protect their interests and work out the creation of uniform rules for the placement of facilities in the event of existing contradictions in the legislation.
“Thus, the small business sector in the petroleum product market is trying to protect its legal rights and stop the obstruction of its activities by local regulatory authorities,” the association said in a press release.
According to the association, at present, the current legislation contains certain features of the legal regulation of the manufacture, certification, establishment and operation of small filling stations. In particular, small filling stations are not classified as high-risk facilities, they are not required to carry out an environmental impact assessment on the environment, they are not classified as real property.
The association said law enforcement and regulatory agencies do not take into account the peculiarities of the legal status of modular filling stations, which leads to numerous restrictions in their economic activities and relevant losses to this sector of small business.
“The members of the association emphasize that there is a contradiction in the interpretation of the provisions of the current legislation in the field of licensing of retail trade in fuel by the territorial agencies of the State Tax Service of Ukraine, which creates obstacles in the implementation of economic activities and affects the overall shadowing of the small filling station sector,” the association said.
According to the association, tax authorities unreasonably regard small filling stations as construction facilities and require from them acts of commissioning and readiness for operation of the facility.
“Such requirements of the tax authorities contribute to the monopolization of the fuel market in Ukraine and hinder its development on the basis of transparent economic competition. Therefore, the members of the association demand the creation of unified regulatory, production, construction, administrative and procedural bases for the placement of small filling stations,” the association said.
First of all, this concerns the formulation of clear explanations regarding the regulation of the activities of small filling stations and the definition of limiting list of documents required for licensing retail trade in fuel in accordance with Part 38 of Article 15 of the law on state regulation of the production and turnover of ethyl alcohol, cognac and fruit alcohol, alcoholic beverages, tobacco products and fuel.
The association draws the attention of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy to these problems of regulatory support in order to obtain substantiated professional explanations and recommendations. “This will make it possible to obtain uniform transparent principles for licensing retail trade in fuel for all market participants,” the association said.
National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 09/12/20
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
Official rates of banking metals from national bank as of December 09
Source: Central Bank
Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Oleh Nemchinov announced intention to create a working group that will develop a draft document for Ukraine’s transition from a traditional population census to a census based on registers in 2030.
“Today, along with the State Statistics Service of Ukraine and the United Nations Population Fund, we signed a joint statement on the creation of a working group that will work on the development of a comprehensive draft document for Ukraine’s transition from a traditional population census to a census based on registers in the 2030 round of population and housing censuses,” Nemchinov wrote on the Telegram channel.
According to him, the creation of a working group with the involvement of international experts is an important stage in preparation for a high-quality census in registers, recognition of its results by Ukraine’s international partners, digital transformation and a modern culture of data use. The minister believes that the transition to the population census using registers contains numerous advantages and opportunities, in particular, a decrease in financial costs, a reduction in the timing of the census, a decrease in the time for obtaining the results of the population census, a decrease in the burden on respondents, the ability to conduct a census more often than once every ten years.
The European Commission, on behalf of the European Union, has disbursed EUR 600 million to Ukraine under its coronavirus (COVID-19) related macro-financial assistance (MFA) programme.
The European Commission’s press service said this on Wednesday.
Commenting on the payout, European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said: “Ukraine remains high on the European agenda. It is our neighbourhood country and it belongs to Europe. We are committed to offering political, financial and technical support, especially during this time of crisis as a response to COVID-19 pandemic and overcome the social and economic consequences,” the press service said, citing Dombrovskis.
He also said that this EUR 600 million first tranche of emergency macro-financial assistance “confirms the EU’s solidarity with Ukraine and our continued close cooperation.” “I offer my best wishes to Ukraine’s government for 2021 in carrying through its reform agenda, to improve living standard, continue fighting against corruption and bring Ukraine closer to the EU,” the EC Vice President said.
The European Commission said that this disbursement will contribute to macro-financial stability in Ukraine, “while allowing it to allocate resources towards mitigating the severe negative socio-economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.”
As reported, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Ukrainian government and the EC in the summer, followed by its ratification in the middle of September, as well as after Ukraine’s resumption of participation in continuing cooperation under the IMF program in recent weeks.
Ukrainian agricultural producers as of December 7 had sowed main winter crops on an area of 8.06 million hectares (98% of the forecast of 8.2 million hectares), while 79,300 hectares were sown in a week.
According to a report on the website of the Ministry for Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture, in particular the area under wheat was 6.1 million hectares (100% of the forecast), barley – 954,700 hectares (101%), rye – 125,200 hectares (94%), and rapeseeds – 881,100 hectares (87%).
According to the State Statistics Service, the area sown with winter crops for the harvest in 2020 amounted to 8.9 million hectares, which is 0.2% more than the area for the harvest in 2019.
Winter wheat was sown on 6.4 million hectares (0.6% less than for the 2019 harvest), winter barley – one million hectares (3.9% more), rye – 135,000 hectares (16.7% more) and rapeseeds – 1.3 million hectares (0.3% more).
