The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has decided to approve the attraction of a loan in the amount of EUR 149 million by national energy company Ukrenergo for the project to modernize power lines from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Finance Ministry of Ukraine reported on Thursday. According to the report of the ministry, the project foresees the replacement of transformer equipment and reconstruction of 12 substations with the installation of automated process management systems.
The project would allow the company to increase effectiveness and reliability of electricity transmission in western, northern, southern and central regions of Ukraine, modernize the key power transmission facilities, which is the condition for harmonization of the Ukrainian power grid with the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), the ministry said.
Five parties can enter the parliament, and more than half of Ukrainians intend to vote in early elections. Those are the results of a survey conducted by Ukraina TV channel Sehodnia (Today) ezine with the Edison Research. The field research of the survey was conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.
Survey results, which were published by on Sehodnia’s website, show five parties can enter parliament: Servant of the People, Opposition Platform – For Life, European Solidarity, Holos and Batkivschyna.
Four more parties which have a chance of surpassing the five percent barrier are Strength and Honor, Opposition Bloc – Peace and Development Party, Oleh Liashko’s Radical Party and Civil Position.
The survey was conducted by Edison Research by telephone and personal interview in all regions of Ukraine, except for Russia-occupied Crimea and Russia-occupied parts of Donbas.
The company that developed the electronic ticket sale system of Ukrzaliznytsia – Unit LLC – has accused a group of officials of Ukrzaliznytsia of pressing on it an asked the company’s head to attract profile specialists and law enforcement agencies to settle the issue. The corresponding open letter to the head of Ukrzaliznytsia Yevhen Kravtsov regarding the situation around the Electronic Ticket system has been published on the website of Unit. “To date, a group of officials of Ukrzaliznytsia in collusion with a private company, is taking measures to remove the system from Ukrzaliznytsia’s control and then transfer it to the management of a private company. For achieving the goal the officials of the Main Computer Center of Ukrzaliznytsia artificially create interruptions in the work of the system, and in the future the system can be forcibly stopped by these persons in order to accuse the system developer, Unit LLC, thereby justifying itself,” the company said in the letter.
According to the company, such destructive actions of the officials, which can lead to a complete stop of the system, undermine the work of Ukrzaliznytsia.
The system developer calls on Kravtsov to intervene in the situation in order to prevent possible interruptions and shutdown of the system, which will lead to a collapse in ticket sales. Unit demands to organize a joint meeting with the involvement of relevant specialists and relevant law enforcement agencies.
PRESSING, SERVICE, TICKET SALES, UKRZALIZNYTSIA'S, UNIT ACCUSES
The UFuture investment group of Ukrainian businessman Vasyl Khmelnytsky plans to invest $2.5 million in construction of a composite plant in the Bila Tserkva industrial park within two years. “We together with Volodymyr Khmurych director of the Bila Tserkva industrial park laid the capsule of the new plant in the industrial park. Here in six months there will be a composite plant. In America, composite materials have already replaced metal by 15-17%,” Khmelnytsky wrote on his Facebook page.
According to him, the plant intends to create 100 jobs.
“Before starting the construction of a large plant, we leased a place in the workshop, bought one line of equipment, adjusted it and launched the first batch of the product. It cost only $85,000, we made sure that everything works, that the quality of the product is high, and decided to scale up production,” Khmelnytsky said.
He recalled that this will be the second plant in the Bila Tserkva industrial park, and by the end of the year it is planned to build three more.
As reported, the first plant in Bila Tserkva industrial park – Plank Electrotechnic, which will be the first in Ukraine to produce modern electrotechnic systems, was officially opened in April of this year. UFuture invested $ 2.8 million in its creation.
UFuture unites companies and social projects of Khmelnytsky. The group includes the Bila Tserkva industrial park, the UDP development company, the Sikorsky Kyiv International Airport, outdoor advertising operator RTM-Ukraine, as well as innovative businesses: UDP Renewables (creates and develops photovoltaic power plants under its control), the pharmaceutical company Biopharma, innovative parks UNIT.City and LvivTech.City.
Ukraine’s Interagency Commission on Foreign Trade has introduced 5-year anti-dumping duties on imports of certain kinds of rolled products with anti-corrosive coating from Russia (at 47.57%) and China (22.78%), according to the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. “In order to defend Ukrainian production of flat rolled products, it has been decided to apply anti-dumping measures with respect to imports of goods made in Russia and China to Ukraine for a period of five years,” the ministry said.
In addition, the commission extended its special measures with respect to imports of flexible, porous polyurethane foam, irrespective of the country of origin. According to the ministry, the duty on these goods will be 11.22% when the decision takes force, 10.66% after 12 months, and 10.13% after 24 months.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has expanded a list of goods from the Russian Federation on which embargo is imposed from July 1, 2019, including raw materials for cement (clinkers) and all kinds of ready cement, mineral (nitrogenous, potassium, phosphorous) fertilizers, foodstuff for animals and veterinary medicines.
The document adopted on May 15, 2019, which was posted on the government’s website, also includes matches, plywood products, wallpaper, light industry products, in particular some types of knitwear and footwear, carbon steel wires, metal wires, pipes, tubes, metal nets, fasteners, steel utensils, equipment for the production of bakery products, and vehicles (cars, motorcycles, tractors, etc.).
In addition, ban on import of used railway cars and trams will be imposed from March 1, 2020.
