Ukraine has entered the crisis in better macroeconomic condition than in previous crises due to prudent macroeconomic management over the past several years, and activity in Ukraine, the largest economy in the subregion, is projected to shrink in 2020, by 5.5%, the World Bank has said.
The decline in GDP in January-August 2020 will amount to 5.8%, the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine expects in the review of economic activity in August.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has improved its assessment of the decline of Ukraine’s GDP in 2020 to 7.2% from 8.2% in the June forecast.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has said that the GDP forecast for 2020 has remained unchanged at 6% and the expectations regarding its growth next year were improved from 4% (in July forecast) to 4.2%, the NBU said on its website on Thursday.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has improved the assessment of the decline in the gross domestic product of Ukraine (GDP) to 6.2% in July-September 2020 from 7.4% (in July’s forecast), according to an inflation report posted on the regulator’s website on Thursday night.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) predicts a deficit of the public administration sector in 2020 at 6.5%, in 2021 at 4% of GDP and in 2022 at 3% of GDP, according to the central bank’s inflation report posted on its website on Thursday night.
The Board of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has decided to leave its key policy rate unchanged at 6%, according to a posting on the website of the central bank on Thursday.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has improved its inflation forecast for 2020 from 4.7% (in the July forecast) to 4.1%, while worsened it for the next year from 5.5% to 6.5%.
The volume of exports of goods in September amounted to $4.19 billion, which is 2.87% higher than in September 2019, but 0.77% less than in August, the State Customs Service has reported.
The deficit of Ukraine’s foreign trade in goods in January-August 2020 decreased 59.4% compared to January-August 2019, to $2.399 billion from $5.915 billion, the State Statistics Service reported on Thursday.
Consumer prices in Ukraine in September 2020 increased 0.5% after a decrease of 0.2% in August and 0.6% in July and an increase of 0.2% in June, 0.3% in May and 0.8% in April and March, the State Statistics Service reported on Friday.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has improved its inflation forecast for 2020 from 4.7% (in the July forecast) to 4.1%, while worsened it for the next year from 5.5% to 6.5%.
State budget revenues in September 2020 amounted to UAH 76 billion, which is 15.3% more than the planned figure and 11.5% more than last year’s level, according to the data of the State Treasury Service.
The total public debt of Ukraine in September 2020 decreased 2.6% in U.S. dollars, to $82.89 billion and increased by 0.32% in hryvnias, to UAH 2.345 trillion, according to data on the website of the Ministry of Finance.
The prices of industrial producers in Ukraine in September 2020 increased 1.7%, while in August the increase was 2.3%, in July 0.4%, and in June and May they decreased 2% and 0.6%, the State Statistics Service reported on Monday.
Withine Investments LTD (Cyprus), belonged to MP Vadim Novinsky, on November 13, increased its stake in Unex Bank (Kyiv) to 100% from 94.979975%, according to the information disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission.
As reported, Flot Express LLC, owned by Dmytro Yeltyshev, a partner of MP Vadim Novinsky in a number of companies, in September squeezed out the shares of Unex Bank from minority shareholders for the amount of UAH 0.32 with a nominal value of UAH 1.
According to the bank’s report in the information disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission, Flot Express with its 4.3638% acted jointly with Withine Investments Ltd.
At the end of August, the companies announced the merger of their stakes, thus entering into ownership of the dominant stake (over 95%) – 99.3438% of the charter capital of the financial institution, or 290.084 million shares out of 292 million of all bank shares.
According to the NBU, as of October 1, 2020, Unex Bank ranked 64th in terms of total assets (UAH 796.827 million) among 74 banks operating in the country.
Kozelshchinska Central District Hospital (Poltava Region) received an oxygen concentrator from Ferrexpo Belanovo Mining (FBM). This equipment will be used in the intensive care unit of the hospital.
“As previously reported according to the Ferrexpo’s assistance program, we constantly monitor the situation with the spread of coronavirus in Ukraine, study the needs of doctors and cover them in line with priority. Unfortunately due to the beginning of cold season the situation with patients in our country has worsened and now it is especially important to continue support of doctors who work extra hard to save lives, ”said Yuri Khimich, General Director of Ferrexpo Belanovo Mining.
According to head of Kozelshchinska hospital intensive care unit Nadiia Ovdienko, now the situation is extremely difficult and the medical institution turns to philanthropists for vital equipment and medicines. “We are very grateful to FBM for this concentrator and for the systematic assistance the company provides to our hospital,” – she added.
This oxygen concentrator compares favorably with analogs with low noise level, light weight and energy saving. The device has a dual flow and is designed to supply oxygen to two patients simultaneously.
Notes to Editors:
Ferrexpo is a Swiss headquartered iron ore company with assets in Ukraine. It has been mining, processing and selling high quality iron ore pellets to the global steel industry for over 40 years. In 2019, the Group produced 10.5 million tonnes of pellets ranking it as the 3rd largest exporter of pellets to the global steel industry with a market share of approximately 8%. Ferrexpo has a diversified customer base supplying steel mills in Austria, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Vietnam and America. Ferrexpo has a premium listing on the main market of the London Stock Exchange under the ticker FXPO. For further information, please visit www.ferrexpo.com
CORONAVIRUS, COVID19, FBM, FERREXPO, HELP, KHIMICH, KREMENCHUK
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, in a telephone conversation with Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva, discussed the progress towards the adoption of the state budget of Ukraine for 2021, the preservation of the anti-corruption agenda and macroeconomic stability in the country.
“Our teams enjoy strong trust & work closely to welcome the IMF mission ASAP,” he wrote on Twitter on Tuesday night.
The Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine announces the Cinema Challenge Hackathon, dedicated to finding IT solutions that will help popularize high-quality Ukrainian-made content.
According to the ministry’s website, the online hackathon will be held on November 14-22 with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Ukrainian Cinema Foundation. The organizers are national online cinema sweet.tv and the We_Challenge team.
The goal of the hackathon is to accelerate the development of domestic technologies for online cinemas.
During the Cinema Challenge, IT specialists will develop new Ukrainian solutions to popularize national content: cinema, TV programs, TV series, and dubbing.
Data scientists, developers, managers, designers, marketers can take part in the hackathon. Participation is possible both individually and as a team, depending on the chosen direction.
The prize fund is $50,000 ($10,000 for first place in each challenge, $5,000 for second place in each challenge, and $10,000 for the winner among projects).
Areas of the hackathon are the following: Challenge 1 (Data scientists) – participants and teams are working on a recommendation system for films, Challenge 2 (Data scientists) – participants and teams are working on a recommendation system for TV programs, Projects Contest (Teams) – teams are working on projects with topics: gamification/referral system or Your Idea – suggest your version within the general theme of the Hackathon.
“The main goal of hackathons is to create effective IT solutions that will provide the viewer with the most valuable content and contribute to the development of a culture of consumption of high-quality Ukrainian video content. For the first time, the event is being held for the development of cinema tech in Ukraine. Of course, top platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV + and others are already known in this segment. But I am sure: we also have great potential, Ukrainian developers have everything they need to create a world-class streaming platform,” the press service said, citing Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation for IT Development Oleksandr Borniakov.
Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine Oleksandr Tkachenko says that the ministry is already preparing a proposal to the government on the regime of financial compensation for cultural sector.
“The Ministry of Culture is already preparing our proposal to the Cabinet of Ministers on the regime of financial compensation. We will appeal to the European experience, because the introduction of a lockdown there provided for financial compensation from the state to business entities (including self-employed ones) for a period of downtime,” Tkachenko wrote in the Telegram channel on Wednesday.
In this connection, the minister cited calculations on the impact of quarantine on culture, tourism and creative industries.
So, according to the minister, 2% of the country’s GDP, or more than UAH 83 billion, is the total loss of business in the cultural sector, creative industries and tourism from lost income since the beginning of March, taking into account the first lockdown.
In particular, in the field of tourism: a decline in the tourist flow by 75%; average loss of income for one weekend – UAH 1,045 million.
Hotels – drop in average occupancy from 50% to 20%; average loss of income for one weekend – UAH 119,7 million.
Cinemas – 39% loss of visitors; average loss of income for one weekend – UAH 17,13 million.
Culture and creative industries (excluding IT and film networks) – loss of 50% of income due to restrictions on holding events and entering institutions, loss of solvency; average loss of income for one weekend – UAH 324.16 million.
In addition, the minister said that a lockdown of tourism, culture and creative industries could lead to a loss of about 10% of GDP over the next five years.
According to him, the recovery of markets will take place slowly due to the migration of specialists to more protected industries, and the negative balance of the labor force in creative industries will lead to the loss of their export potential and the possibility of promoting Ukraine in the world through creative products and services.
