The construction of a new airfield at the international airport in Dnipro has begun, the work is to be completed in 36 months, the head of the State Agency for Infrastructure Projects of Ukraine (Ukrinfraproekt), Kyrylo Khomiakov, said on Facebook.
He said the new terminal of the airport, in turn, will be built and put into operation in 18 months.
“The first phase of construction includes all earthworks, the construction of a new apron and taxiways to connect the new terminal to the old lane during the construction of the new lane. This means that passengers will be able to use the new terminal and aircraft will be able to use the new apron by the end of next year!” he wrote.
The old runway will be operational during construction.
As reported, the state enterprise Financing of Infrastructure Projects (Fininpro) signed an agreement with Altis-Construction LLC for the purchase of works on building a new airfield at Dnipro International Airport with an offer 30.6% lower than the expected cost for UAH 3.95 billion.
According to Minister of Infrastructure Vladyslav Krykliy, back in September 2020, preparatory work began at the facility to ensure the continuous operation of the airport during construction. At the same time, a private investor, NS Dnipro, began to build new passenger and VIP terminals.
It is planned to build a runway with a length of 3.2 km at Dnipro airport. The cost of the project, according to the state examination report, is UAH 6.23 billion.
For the current year, the government has allocated UAH 1.4 billion for the construction of the airfield.
The Verkhovna Rada adopted at the second reading law on the unification of the rates of customs duties for light industry goods (bill No. 4410).
As a correspondent of Interfax-Ukraine reports, 307 MPs voted for the bill at the second reading, with the required 226 votes.
According to the explanatory note to the bill, the unification of duty rates will speed up the customs clearance of such goods. The bill provides for the establishment of equal preferential rates of import duty on homogeneous goods of the light industry by reducing (by 255 subcategories) or increasing (by 25 categories) the current rates.
The bill, in particular, establishes preferential rates of customs duty: 0% – for raw materials that are not produced in Ukraine (yarn, fibers, threads 50-53 group of the Ukrainian Classifier of Goods for Foreign Economic Activity), as well as for artificial fibers of commodity items 5505, 506 and 5507.
In addition, a preferential rate is set from 1% to 8% for finished products – fabrics, felt, wicker nets, twine and ropes. At the same time, the bill retains the current preferential rates of 5% for mixed cotton fabrics (code 5211).
As for the increase in the rate of duties, they are increased to 10% for light industry goods in those subcategories where such rates are below 10% (some 105 commodity subcategories).
As stated on the website of the Ministry of Finance on Friday, this bill was drafted in cooperation with the Ukrainian Association of enterprises of textile and leather industry.
The Ministry of Finance said that the provisions of the bill do not apply to goods originating from countries with which Free Trade Agreements had been concluded.
Earlier, owner of the Textile-Contact Group, member of the Presidium of the Council of the Federation of Employers of Ukraine Oleksandr Sokolovsky spoke in support of the adoption of this bill.
“Today, the average rate of customs duties on fabric is from 0% to 5%, some up to 8%, while the nomenclature of groups 50-59 of the Ukrainian Classifier of Goods for Foreign Economic Activity includes more than 1,500 items of commodity subcategories, which even a specialist cannot visually distinguish without a laboratory. And laboratories are overloaded and examine the fabric for up to two or three months, and the production technologies go ahead and it is often problematic for them to deal with the codes,” he said.
According to him, the unification of rates will make it possible to simplify the work of inspectors, reduce the costs of importers of raw materials, and also create clear rules of the game for business.
Ekotechnik Nikopol LLC (TIU Canada) will contest the decision of the Kyiv Economic Court, which rejected the company’s claims to Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant (NFP), which disconnected its 10.5 MW solar power plant from the power grid in March 2020.
“TIU Canada has announced the intention to file an appeal against the decision of the first instance court in the case against NFP on the illegal shutdown of the power plant. This action is due to the decision of the Kyiv Economic Court dated January 26, which ruled in favor of NFP, despite the significant amount of evidence that was presented by the legal team of the company,” according to a press release.
TIU Canada noted that such a court decision is not the only case for international investors in Ukraine, which leads to a decrease in foreign direct investment in the country due to lack of the rule of law and the spread of corruption.
“Ukrainians and foreign investors are tired of oligarchy and injustice. The Euro-Atlantic aspirations of the Ukrainian people will never bear fruit if the administration does not carry out real judicial reform and a complete deoligarchization of the economy and power. Today, the efforts of the state are insufficient and useless against entrenched interests that regularly undermine the efficiency of activities of Ukrainian institutions – judicial or bureaucratic,” President of TIU Canada Michael Yurkovich said.
As reported, the 10.5 MW solar station was disconnected from the power grid by NFP in March 2020. TIU Canada noted that NFP took advantage of the fact that the solar station was connected to a substation located on its territory, and explained the need for disconnection by carrying out repair work. The shutdown caused the company losses exceeding EUR1.5 million, which continue to grow.
TIU Canada has been operating in Ukraine since 2016. The company put into operation a 10.5 MW solar power plant in Nikopol in January 2018, an 11 MW solar plant in Mykolaiv region in April 2019. In addition, TIU Canada launched a 33 MW solar power plant in Odesa region. The company’s investments in solar energy, which became the first investor in Ukraine under the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA), amounted to over $ 65 million.
Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant is controlled by EastOne Group, created in the fall of 2007 as a result of restructuring Interpipe Group, and also by Privat Group (both based in Dnipro).
Ukrainian state and private notaries in 2020 certified 217,810 contracts for the sale of land plots, which is 27.8% more than in 2019.
As reported on the website of the Ukrainian Agrarian Association, an increase in the number of contracts provoked the adoption on March 31, 2020 of a law on the conditions for the turnover of agricultural land, although this law will come into force only on July 1, 2021.
According to the association, in the fourth quarter of last year, almost 75,000 sale contracts were certified, while in the third – about 60,000, and in the second – about 45,000.
As the association said, a similar situation is with donation agreements, the total number of which in the past year, according to notaries, increased by 9.6%, to 55,980 and in the fourth quarter the number was close to 20,000.
The association said that in 2019 the number of contracts for the purchase and sale of land plots increased by 12.9%, and in 2018 – by only 1.2%, donation contracts – decreased by 1.1% (in 2018 it increased by 3.1%).
As reported, at the first stage of the law on the turnover of agricultural land – until December 31, 2023 – it will be allowed to sell land plots only to citizens of Ukraine in the amount of no more than 100 hectares per person, as well as exclusion for public needs and exchange of land plots with a difference of the normative monetary evaluation of no more than 10%.
Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) from March 1 will resume a number of flights that were canceled due to quarantine restrictions, and will increase the frequency of flights on the most popular routes.
According to the press service of UIA, in particular, in early March it is planned to resume flights from Kyiv to Geneva and Prague, at the end of March – from Kyiv to Larnaca, Vilnius, Barcelona and Chisinau.
In addition, communication between Odesa and Istanbul will be resumed.
The company plans to increase the frequency of flights on the Kyiv-Dubai route (to six flights a week), and from May – to Istanbul (to 21 per week).
Additionally, UIA will operate flights on the following routes: Kyiv-Delhi (February 25, March 5, March 13 and March 18) and Kyiv-Tashkent (February 28, March 10, March 21 and March 31, return flight the next day).
In March, it is also planned to increase the frequency of flights to daily (seven times a week) on routes from Kyiv to Amsterdam, Paris, Milan, Tbilisi, Yerevan and Tel Aviv. At the same time, with the beginning of summer navigation on flights to Tel Aviv, it is planned to increase the frequency to 11 flights, from May – to 14.
As reported, UIA plans a gradual long-term restoration of the original route network in 2021. In particular, from the beginning of the 2021 summer season, it is planned to launch flights on 43 international and seven domestic routes, which will restore full-fledged air traffic from the regions of Ukraine with numerous European countries through the hub at Boryspil International Airport (Kyiv).
Starting from April 2021, UIA plans to restore its own route network by 64% of the 2019 volume.
Minister of Health of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov has left from Boryspil Airport to India to conduct direct negotiations with manufacturers on additional volumes of Oxford/AstraZeneca and NovaVax vaccines in 2021-2022.
“Kyiv-Dubai-Delhi-Pune. I will be at my destination place in Pune in 17 hours. We are preparing for negotiations with the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world – Serum Institute of India,” Stepanov wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday evening.
According to him, the pandemic will be a global problem for the next several years.
“We understand that it is necessary to contract additional volumes now,” the minister said.
“The main task is to reach the already contracted 12 million doses, to reach direct agreements for the supply of additional volumes of Oxford/AstraZeneca and NovaVax vaccines in 2021-2022 directly with the manufacturer,” Stepanov emphasized.
He also noted that he will personally control the dispatch of the first batch. “The importance of the cargo obliges,” the head of the department added.
