National bank of ukraine’s official rates as of 09/07/19
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made it clear that his visit to the United States may take place this summer.
“Discussions are under way. Everyone has a busy calendar, they are looking into dates. It may happen in summer, as I understand,” he told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on the way from Mariyinsky Palace to the Presidential Office after the Ukraine-EU summit.
In the middle of June, Kurt Volker, the United States Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, said that the exact date of Zelensky’s visit to Washington, D.C., had not been set yet. “Donald Trump sent an invitation to President Zelensky to visit the White House. However, the dates of this visit are to be agreed,” he said.
Ukraine as of July 8, 2019 had threshed grain and leguminous crops on an area of 3.4 million hectares (35% of the forecast), harvesting 11.3 million tonnes of grain, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food has reported on its website.
According to the ministry, farmers collected 7.3 million tonnes of wheat from an area of 2.1 million hectares (32% of the forecast), 3.6 million tonnes of barley from 1.1 million hectares (43% of the forecast), 402,000 tonnes of peas from 187,000 ha (66% of the forecast).
In addition, farmers continue harvesting winter rapeseeds, having threshed 1.1 million tonnes from an area of 519,000 hectares (40% of the forecast).
According to the ministry, farmers from six regions, namely Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, and Ivano-Frankivsk, have started harvesting rye, and as of July 8 had already threshed 2,000 tonnes from 600 ha (0.5% to the forecast). Agrarians of four regions, including Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Mykolaiv, and Odesa, began harvesting oats, having threshed 1,500 tonnes from 1,000 hectares (0.4% of the forecast).
The net revenue of Join Up! tour operator in 2018 totaled UAH 65.741 million, the tour operator has told the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine.
“According to the financial statements [on consolidated revenue], the net sales revenue of Join Up! tour operator for 2018 is UAH 65.741 million,” the committee said in a decision dated June 21, 2019.
The Antimonopoly Committee fined Join Up! UAH 1.5 million for spreading untrue information regarding what airlines the tour operator will cooperate with to carry tourists.
The owners of Join Up! tour operator are Oleksandr Alba and Yuriy Alba.
The Kyivstar mobile communications operator has allowed paying for a subscription to sticker packs in Viber (part of Rakuten Inc.) via own Smart-Money financial service for prepaid subscribers, the companies have said in a joint press release.
“This is the first experience of the collaboration of the messenger and the mobile payment service, which was implemented in Ukraine,” the press service of the mobile operator said.
Users of the Smart Money service will be able to subscribe to all stickers in Viber for UAH 20 per month and access immediately to all collections of stickers, which has more than 500 pictures.
Usually, Viber users pay for each sticker pack separately, but one time at a price of UAH 52-54 per one sticker pack.
The service can be used by Kyivstar prepaid subscribers who have installed the Smart Money application, since payments are made from a mobile account.
“Launching a joint project with Viber is an important step for us. We are confident that such a partnership will help develop a culture of payments with mobile money and thus help citizens of Ukraine to strive for a cashless economy,” Senior Business Development Manager at Kyivstar Olena Suvorova said.
According to Rakuten Viber, Ukrainians make about 4 million calls to Viber every day and send 11 million messages.
“For Viber, this is the first experience of such cooperation in Ukraine,” Senior Director for Business Development in Europe, Africa and Middle East Atanas Raykov said.
Kyivstar also said that today, since the launch of the service in September 2018, 6.4 million transactions has been carried out, and the most popular services were: payment for telecommunication services, national lotteries, online purchases and payment for public transport.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will issue a loan of EUR 20 million (two tranches of EUR 10 million) to Dniprovska agribusiness group, one of the largest poultry producers in Ukraine, for the reconstruction and expansion of the slaughtering house. According to the bank’s website, the total cost of the project is EUR 33.8 million, of which EUR 23.8 million will be invested in 2019-2020, another EUR 10 million in 2020-2021.
According to the EBRD’s website, the project will enable the company to obtain necessary certification for entering the EU market.
As reported, in March 2018 the EBRD issued $5 million to Dniprovska group for the construction of a biogas plant. The total project cost was $5.85 million.
Dniprovska agribusiness group is engaged in poultry farming, plant growing, and processing industrial crops.
