Retail trade turnover in Ukraine (legal entities and individual entrepreneurs) in January-July 2019 in comparable prices increased by 10.1% compared with January-July 2018, the State Statistics Service has said.
According to its data, in nominal terms the volume of retail trade for the seven months of this year amounted to UAH 594.314 billion.
In July 2019 compared with the previous month, retail trade turnover rose by 4.8%, in annual terms (July 2019 to July 2018) by 9%.
The largest growth in retail trade turnover in January-July 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 was recorded in Vinnytsia (18%), Ternopil (17%), Cherkasy (16.2%), Odesa (15%), Kyiv (by 14.5%), Khmelnytsky (by 13.4%), Dnipropetrovsk (by 12.5%), Donetsk (by 11.6%), Luhansk (by 11.3%) regions and in Kyiv (by 14%).
According to the statistics agency, the leaders in absolute terms of the volume of retail trade turnover for the seven months of 2019 were Kyiv city (UAH 115.506 billion), Dnipropetrovsk (UAH 47.1 billion), Odesa (UAH 45.353 billion), Kharkiv (UAH 44.846 billion), Kyiv (UAH 44.199 billion), and Lviv (UAH 36.425 billion) regions. In Donetsk region over this period, retail trade turnover rose by 10.3% (up to UAH 19.122 billion), in Luhansk region by 11.3% (up to UAH 5.425 billion).
Reserves of natural gas in Ukraine’s underground gas storage facilities (UGS) as of August 21 had reached 17.4 billion cubic meters (bcm), which is the highest figure on this date since 2012.
According to the press service of Ukrtransgaz, the high pace of the current year has already led to the fulfillment of planned volumes for injection at four underground storage facilities (Solokhovske, Krasnopartyzanske, Proletarske, Krasnopopivske).
Currently, gas injection continues at Bilche-Volytsko-Uherske, Uherske, Dashavske, Bohorodchanske, Oparske and Kehychivske underground gas storage facilities, where the average daily pumping is about 75 million cubic meters.
According to Ukrtransgaz, at the same time, more than 270 companies today use the services of the company to store gas in underground gas storage facilities both in a common mode and in a customs warehouse mode. Compared to last year, the number of such companies rose by 40%.
GAS, STOCKS, UGS, UKRTRANSGAZ
Ukraine in January-July 2019 decreased electricity exports by 2.3% (by 83.6 million kWh) compared to the same period in 2018, to 3.543 billion kWh, the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry has told Interfax-Ukraine.
Electricity supplies from the Burshtyn TPP Energy Island in the direction of Hungary, Slovakia and Romania increased by 3.8% (by 86.9 million kWh), to 2.382 billion kWh.
Electricity supplies to Poland decreased by 9.2% (by 76.3 million kWh), to 755.6 million kWh.
Electricity supplies to Moldova amounted to 404.8 million kWh, which is 18.9% (94.1 million kWh) less than in January-July 2018.
For the seventh months of 2018 and 2019, Ukrainian electricity was not exported to Belarus and Russia.
In addition, for the aforementioned period Ukraine imported 15.9 million kWh of electricity from the Russian Federation and 0.7 million kWh from Belarus.
The Elektrostal steel smelting enterprise (Kurakhove, Donetsk region) in January-July 2019 saw 65.5% decrease in production of continuous cast steel billets, to 62,000 tonnes compared to the same period of 2018.
As the representative of the enterprise told Interfax-Ukraine, the enterprise stood idle from January to the middle of March, and partially resumed its operation from the middle of March 2019. Now the enterprise is working to one third of its capacities.
It produced 10,000 tonnes of billets in July, 14,000 tonnes in June, 10,000 in May, 17,000 in April and 11,000 in March 2019.
Previously the reason for this situation is the rise in prices for scrap ferrous metal, which makes production unprofitable.
Elektrostal in 2018 reduced the production of continuous cast steel billets by 34.2% compared with 2017, to 289,000 tonnes.
Donetsk Metal Rolling Plant (DMPZ) since 2000 began to experience a shortage of purchased steel billets for its own rolling production, as a result of which it was decided to build a steelmaking enterprise – Elektrostal.
DMPZ specializes in the production and sale of metal products – long products, cast iron pipes, structural elements of ferrous metals, nuts and shovels.
Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) Oleksandr Danyliuk, financial policy expert and newly elected MP from the Servant of the People Party Danylo Getmantsev, Deputy Head of the President’s Office Ruslan Riaboshapka and Head of the State Tax Service Serhiy Verlanov will meet with representatives of the European Business Association (EBA) regarding setting up the Financial Investigations Service.
According to the EBA, during the discussion the issues of the draft law on the Financial Investigations Service, its structure, subordination, approaches to work and instruments will be raised.
The event will take place at the InterContinental Kyiv hotel at 09:00 on August 22.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has said that it is impossible to understand the executions of Jews, Ukrainians, Roma and other victims of Babyn Yar, to forget and forgive this crime, and its repetition cannot be allowed.
“It is impossible to understand the inhuman desire to destroy people on ethnic, national or political grounds, regardless of gender and age. Before our eyes there is a terrible endless queue of people who did not understand that they were being led to death,” he said, speaking on Monday at a ceremony of reverence to victims of Babyn Yar with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Zelensky noted that most of those killed in Babyn Yar were of Jewish nationality, but “having shot all the Jews they could find, the Nazis began to get rid of other prisoners: Roma, Ukrainians who were fighting for their state.”
“The totalitarian Soviet regime tabooed such topics as the Holocaust, Babyn Yar, the Holodomor, and hid the real scale of these crimes,” he said.
Zelensky noted that, according to various sources, during the period of the Nazi occupation from 70,000 to 200,000 people were shot in Babyn Yar.
“It is impossible to forget and forgive, and the Ukrainian people will always remember these crimes against humanity. We will never forget what xenophobia and racism lead to. The ideology of intolerance and violence deprives of the most precious and valuable thing – human life,” said the president of Ukraine.
Zelensky called on the international community to join forces to prevent manifestations of anti-Semitism and intolerance on racial or national grounds.
“We must not allow it again! Eternal memory to the victims of the Babyn Yar, eternal memory to the victims of the Second World War,” said the president of Ukraine.
