President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky calls for maintaining the tax rate for IT employees at 5%, the President’s Office website reports.
“This industry in the country is developing not due to the state support, but due to the intelligence of Ukrainians. One of the steps that the state can take is not to increase the tax burden on this industry,” the president said at a meeting with representatives of IT business in Lviv within a working trip to the region.
Zelensky noted that at present it is one of the few professions that can not only ensure a decent standard of living, but also reform the state and help combat corruption.
“It is with digital that we can implement any important reforms. And what everyone is saying: we need honest customs, honest law enforcement agencies, we need to overcome corruption – we all understand that the human factor is very difficult to fix. But digital and IT industry can do it,” the president said.
The President of the IT Ukraine association, Taras Kytsmey, added that the Ukrainian IT industry has prospects for development and maintaining such a tax rate will facilitate the influx of personnel from abroad and ensure the retention of talented professionals in Ukraine.
JSC Ukrposhta delivered 100,000 healthcare parcels in four months.
“Just now – tomorrow it will be public information – we have delivered the 100,000th parcel with medicines for four months. That is, from scratch we have collected 100,000 parcels of medicines delivered home,” said Ukrposhta CEO Igor Smelyansky on the air of KSE Business Transformation Week “Transformation Leaders. Public sector” platform.
He also informed that during quarantine, Ukrposhta opened more than 30 new branches and there are plans to launch 500 movable offices in seven regions by the end of the year.
“For the first time in history of Ukraine I would like to digitize the whole country, so that in every corner of the country, even in yet many places lacking mobile communication – it would be possible to provide digital banking services or track AliExpress orders. And this will come true not ‘someday’, but next September, after launching the last of 2,500 movable offices and, thus, we will be able to provide all these services both online and offline,” he stressed.
As previously reported, on March 23 the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine adopted a resolution amending the license terms for the production, wholesale and retail trade and import of medicines (except for active pharmaceutical ingredients). According to the resolution, Ukrposhta, along with other postal communication operators, can deliver medicines and related products to consumers.
Ukraine’s Minister of Finance Serhiy Marchenko has pointed to the delay in the $ 350 million tranche from the World Bank, in general expects to receive $700 million in two tranches, and is also finalizing the social support project.
“We expect them. On September 1, we made the largest payment of $2 billion and did it on our own, without financial support from international partners, which we expected. We are ready for different scenarios, but we count on the support of our international partners,” he said in an exclusive interview with the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
The minister stressed that Ukraine expects to receive these funds this year, as this will allow timely financing of the accumulated expenses.
He explained that initially it was about $1 billion.
“At first we talked about $1 billion through DPL, but due to the significant burden on the World Bank budget due to the significant number of requests from all member countries, this amount was reduced to $700 million, and a separate social assistance project, which we are now finalizing,” Marchenko said.
Bastion-Group LLC that privatized SE Kyivpasservis in May 2020 intends to start the wide-scale enhancing of the capital and regional bus stations.
According to Kyivpasservis Marketing Director Dmytro Ozhihov, Kyiv Central Bus Station is the first in line for enhancing.
“We have already received all legal permits and documents for enhancing Kyiv Central Bus Station, its plan and design are ready to be published soon,” Ozhihov said.
The private investor plans to create an international transport hub based on Kyiv Central Bus Station and develop a European bus service culture.
In the new bus station, it is planned to equip modern food courts, information boards throughout its territory, recreation areas, as well as a medical office to assist passengers and provide preliminary examination of drivers.
The new project of the bus station takes into account all the requirements for infrastructure use by disabled passengers.
In the future, it is planned to build a modern hotel for short time guests waiting for runs or staying overnight at the bus station.
As of Friday morning, the number of Hasidic pilgrims in front of Novi Yarylovychi checkpoint on the border with Belarus has slightly decreased, and now there are about 700 people, said the speaker of the State Border Service of Ukraine Andriy Demchenko.
“As of 10:00, we have information that the number of foreign pilgrims has slightly decreased. If yesterday morning and evening there were about a thousand of them, then at the moment there may be about 700 of them,” said Demchenko to the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Friday.
He also said that he hopes that the pilgrims heeded to the calls of the State Border Service.
‘It’s radical to say that they left largely – we do not observe such a situation yet, and we do not have such information. But we hope that those foreigners nevertheless heeded to the explanations that our employees gave them, emphasizing that the decision to ban entry for foreigners will not be revised until September 28 and they will not be able to enter the territory of our state, taking into account the fact that the purpose of their trip was a pilgrimage, which does not fall under the category of exceptions for foreigners who can enter the territory of our country,” Demchenko said.
The speaker also reported that pilgrims are trying to get to Ukraine through other checkpoints, but these are isolated cases, and after arriving at the passport control line, they are denied entry and return back.
“This situation happens every day, through other checkpoints along the state border in general. But these are single citizens or very small groups of foreigners. When they arrive at the passport control line, they are denied entry and return back,” Demchenko said.
In turn, the official representative of the State Border Committee of Belarus Anton Bychkovsky said that about 600 Hasidic pilgrims out of about 1,200 who were blocked at the Belarusian-Ukrainian border have left it and are returning deep into Belarus.
“Now 570 Hassid pilgrims are leaving the border,” Bychkovsky said.
According to him, after passing through passport control, the pilgrims get on buses and leave the border deep into Belarus.
Earlier, hundreds of Hasidic pilgrims gathered near Novi Yarylovychi – Nova Huta checkpoint, wishing to get to the Ukrainian city of Uman to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
Belarusian border guards allowed the pilgrims to pass, but Ukrainian border guards did not allow them to enter the territory of Ukraine due to restrictions on the entry of foreign citizens and stateless persons into the country, introduced in order to combat the spread of coronavirus.
JSC Farmak will meet its output target by the end of 2020, anticipates Farmak Executive Director Volodymyr Kostiuk.
“We do not expect to go into the red this year. We will have probably get what we planned by the end of the year,” he said to Interfax-Ukraine on the sidelines of the presentation of Ukraine’s first mobile pharmaceutical museum.
Kostiuk believes that the implementation of the target indicators will be achieved, in particular, due to increased exports.
“In particular, we managed to export to other countries a lot. The Ukrainian market has contracted,” he stated.
Kostiuk noted that during the quarantine nearly 400 employees worked remotely with their salary paid in full.
“At the height of the quarantine 400 employees worked remotely. Now there are slightly fewer of them, but we are gradually increasing this number due to the worsening epidemical situation and a growing number of COVID cases. All employees on remote work receive full salaries,” he said.
Kostiuk also said that with the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Farmak started producing antiseptic for the company’s needs.
“We developed it very quickly basing on WHO formula to meet our company needs. We do not produce it now,” he said.
Kostiuk also said Farmak continues clinical trials on the effectiveness of the company’s Amizon drug in treating COVID-19 infected patients.
Farmak is the leader of the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market with a 5.9% stake in monetary terms.
Over the past five years, Farmak’s investments in the scientific and technical complex, production equipment and research activities amounted to UAH 3.4 billion.
