As of April 4, Ukraine sowed 926 thousand hectares of spring grains and legumes, up 8.7% year-on-year, and started sowing sunflower, the press service of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food reported on Friday.
According to the report, 116.5 thousand hectares were planted with wheat (79.8 thousand hectares a week earlier), 551.8 thousand hectares with barley (315.5 thousand hectares), 164.3 thousand hectares with peas (102.9 thousand hectares), and 82.3 thousand hectares with oats (50.7 thousand hectares).
According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, Odesa region is the leader in terms of sowing rates, having sown spring crops on 92.3.1 thou hectares, Ternopil region – 87.4 thou hectares, Poltava region – 83.2 thou hectares, Mykolaiv region – 73.6 thou hectares, Vinnytsia region – 72.6 thou hectares.
In addition, 33 thou hectares have already been planted with sunflower, 64.8 thou hectares with sugar beet, and 2.6 thou hectares with soybeans.
The Ministry reminded that in general, in 2025, it is planned to plant more than 5.7 mln ha of spring grains and legumes, which corresponds to the level of 2024. The main feature of the new season will be an increase in the area under spring wheat by 28%, to 222.8 thou hectares. Such changes in the crop structure are in line with the stable demand from processing companies and exporters.
As reported, as of April 4, 2024, the total area under spring grains and pulses was 852.1 thsd ha. Peas were planted on 119.0 thou hectares, barley – on 543.2 thou hectares, wheat – on 118.3 thou hectares, oats – on 62.4 thou hectares.
On April 3, the Finance Ministry announced a tender for voluntary insurance of motor vehicles (CASCO), according to the Prozorro e-procurement system.
The total expected cost of the service is 143 thousand UAH. The last day for accepting bids is April 11.
Nova Poshta, the leader in express shipping in Ukraine, has opened a branch in Madrid, the seventh city where the company has a presence with stationary offices in Spain, the company’s press service said.
According to the company’s announcement on Friday, Nova Poshta plans to expand its network in southern Spain, with new offices to open in Benidorm, Marbella, and Valencia.
“Nova Poshta has opened a branch in the Spanish capital of Madrid. The new service point is located in Madrid at: C. del Cañaveral, 95, Bajos 1, 28029. Here you can quickly send and receive documents and parcels weighing up to 30 kg and measuring up to 120×70×70 cm,” the company’s press service said.
According to the CEO of Nova Post in Spain, Sergey Karputev, the next step is to expand its network to the south of Spain.
“We plan to open branches in Benidorm, Marbella and another in Valencia,” Karputev said.
He noted that over 18.5 thousand customers use Nova Poshta services in Spain, including more than 350 businesses.
Madrid has become the seventh city in Spain where Nova Poshta has a presence with stationary offices. Since 2024, the company has opened branches in Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante, Torrevieja and Málaga.
“Nova Poshta delivers packages to any address in Madrid, across Spain, and to 17 European countries. Recently, Nova Poshta launched delivery to Portugal. Delivery time from Ukraine to Spain is 5 days or more.
Astarta, Ukraine’s largest sugar producer, has already sown more than 60% of the planned sugar beet area and started sowing sunflower, the company’s press service reports on Facebook.
“The minimum moisture reserves in the soil due to the lack of precipitation in the autumn-winter period and rapid spring warming forced us to quickly adapt agricultural technologies to make the most of the favorable sowing windows,” the agricultural holding explained.
According to the report, Astarta has allocated the planned sown areas for strategic crops as follows: sugar beet – 34 thousand hectares, soybeans – 55 thousand hectares (including 3 thousand hectares for seeds), winter wheat – 46 thousand hectares (including 3 thousand hectares for seeds), sunflower – 28 thousand hectares, winter rapeseed – 13 thousand hectares, corn – 13 thousand hectares. The area under organic farming is 2 thou hectares. At the same time, the actual total structure of Astarta’s acreage will be clarified based on the results of the sowing campaign.
“Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding company operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It comprises six sugar factories, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of 220 thousand hectares and dairy farms with 22 thousand cattle, an oil extraction plant in Globyno (Poltava region), seven elevators and a biogas complex.
In 2023, the agricultural holding reduced its net profit by 5.0% to EUR 61.9 million, and its EBITDA decreased by 6.1% to EUR 145.77 million, while revenue increased by 21.3% to EUR 618.93 million.
In 2024, PJSC Ichnyansky Milk and Cannery (ICCK, Chernihiv region) received UAH 77.23 million in net loss against UAH 57.67 million in net profit.
According to the agenda of the annual general meeting of shareholders scheduled for April 25 in remote mode, the shareholders are proposed to approve the results of financial and economic activities, and not to accrue dividends based on the results of work in 2024 due to the lack of net profit.
The shareholders will be asked to hear and approve the report of the company’s supervisory board and the external auditor of Creston Ukraine LLC, and re-elect the supervisory board. They will also review the provisions of the charter on the supervisory board. The chairman of the company’s management board will be obliged to re-register the information in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Individuals and Public Organizations.
In addition, the general meeting will decide to increase the amount of contribution of Provian LLC to the authorized capital of the company to UAH 59,521.00 and to decrease the amount of contribution of individual shareholders to the authorized capital of the company to UAH 1,473.00. The Chairman of the Management Board will be obliged to formalize the relevant changes in accordance with the procedure established by law.
Finally, the shareholders will approve the budget of PJSC IMCC for 2025.
According to the Opendatabot service, in 2024 PJSC IMCC increased its revenue by 2.9% to UAH 842.86 million, debt obligations by 10.8% to UAH 528.68 million, and assets by 14.2% to UAH 535.55 million.
“Ichnyansky Dairy Processing Plant is part of Proviant Group, which is a distributor and exporter of condensed milk produced by the plant. Proviant LLC is a member of the group of the same name along with other companies engaged in the production and sale of dairy products.
According to the information in the NSSMC disclosure system, the shareholders with large stakes in IMCC are Proviant LLC, which owns 53.7% of the shares, and Hyperion Invest Closed Non-Diversified Venture Corporate Investment Fund, which owns 43.92%.
According to information on its website, IMCC occupies about 25% of the domestic market in the segment of products it produces (bottled milk and condensed milk) and exports them to 38 countries. Its brands are Ichnia, MamaMilla, and Milada. In 2025, the company is to launch a cottage cheese production line, for the construction of which it has raised UAH 150 million under the government program Affordable Loans 5-7-9%.
The occupancy rate of Lviv hotels in 2024 dropped to 49% compared to 52% in the same period in 2023, the press service of the Hotel Matrix hotel analytics project reports.
“The year 2024 was a period of significant changes for the Lviv hotel market: the city lost part of its business tourism status to Kyiv. The decline in corporate and business bookings led to a decrease in overall occupancy, which, despite active attempts to increase ADR, could not fully compensate for this loss, leading to a decrease in annual RevPAR compared to 2023,” Hotel Matrix reported.
According to Hotel Matrix, the average daily rate (ADR) for the reporting period amounted to UAH 2785, which is 5.8% more than in the same period in 2023. At the same time, RevPAR (revenue per available room per day) decreased by 3.2% to UAH 1375.
“Despite the 5.8% increase in the average room rate, it was not enough to compensate for the decline in occupancy. This indicates that Lviv hotels, although they were able to adapt their tariff policy, were unable to cope with the complete loss of customer flows, which led to a decline in RevPAR in 2024,” the study says.
It is noted that Lviv hotels should revise their hotel strategies for 2025 to compensate for these changes in the dynamics of customer flow.
Hotel Matrix is a web-based hotel analytics product developed by experts from Poland and Ukraine. It was launched in May 2020. Currently, 200 hotels are connected to Hotel Matrix.
