National Energy Company Ukrenergo and state-owned enterprise (SOE) Energomarket in December 2018 will launch software required for the operation of the retail segment of the new power market, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Kistion has said. He said that the terms are outlined in the plan of the implementation of the law on the electricity market verified by the heads of the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry, the National Commission for the State Regulation of Energy, Housing and Utilities Services (NCER) and the parliamentary committee for fuel and energy complex.
“The first stage of the reform related to the retail market segment will start already in December 2018. Two months later, Ukrenergo and Energomarket will launch the required software, and NCER will approve the last part of the acts needed to effectively launch a new market,” Kistion wrote on his Facebook page.
The deputy prime minister added that the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry, in turn, is obliged to forward the bills on the rules of ensuring the supply of electricity to protected consumers and the rules of holding a tender for the construction of generating capacities, the introduction of energy efficient measures to the government in the shortest possible time.
British American Tobacco (BAT) has started selling tobacco heating systems under the glo trademark in Ukraine. “Ukraine is the tenth market in the world where we are launching the electronic device glo, a product with a potentially reduced risk in which tobacco is heated rather than burnt. This product has been developed in the U.K. for more than four years. In the past six years, British American Tobacco has invested more than $2.5 billion in research and development of alternatives to smoking with a potentially reduced risk,” CEO of British American Tobacco Ukraine Simon Welford said at a presentation of the product on Thursday.
According to him, over the past four years the company has invested about $50 million in development in Ukraine.
“Marking this year the 25th anniversary of our business in Ukraine, we see great opportunities in this country. We are the largest British investor in Ukraine. To date we have invested $520 million,” Wellford said.
He said that today the capacity of the Ukrainian tobacco factory BAT-Pryluky (Chernihiv region) is 22 billion pieces per year.
Retail trade turnover in Ukraine in January-August 2018 increased by 5.4% in comparable prices in comparison with January-August 2017, the State Statistics Service has said. According to its data, in August 2018 in comparison with July 2018 retail trade turnover rose by 5.7%, compared with August 2017 by 7.5%.
The largest increase in retail trade turnover for the eight months of 2018 compared to the same period in 2017 was observed in Luhansk (27.9%), Donetsk (13.3%), Poltava (10.8%), Zakarpattia (10.2%), and Kyiv regions (10%). As reported, retail trade turnover in Ukraine in 2017 increased by 8.8%, amounting to UAH 816.554 billion.
Ukraine as of September 18 threshed 36.8 million tonnes of grain and leguminous crops from an area of 10.4 million hectares (70% of the forecast) with the yield of 3.52 tonnes per ha, Ukraine’s Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food has said on its website. The harvest of early grains and leguminous crops amounted to 34.3 million tonnes from an area of 9.9 million hectares with a yield of 3.48 tonnes per hectare.
Some 2.2 million tonnes of maize was threshed from 402,000 hectares (9%) with the yield of 5.49 tonnes per hectare, some 84,000 tonnes of buckwheat was harvested from 66,000 hectares (61%) with a yield of 1.28 tonnes per hectare, and the total harvest of millet was 56,000 tonnes gathered from 36,000 hectares (68%) with a yield of 1.57 tonnes per hectare.
In addition, 4.7 million tonnes of sunflower seeds were harvested from 2.2 million hectares with a yield of 2.13 tonnes per hectare and 837,000 tonnes of soybean from 346,000 hectares with a yield of 2.42 tonnes per hectare.
Some 2.7 million tonnes of rapeseeds were threshed from 1 million hectares with a yield of 2.61 tonnes per hectare.
A total of 947,000 tonnes of sugar beets were dug from 20,000 ha (7%) with a yield of 46.7 tonners per ha.
Along with the harvesting the autumn sowing campaign is under way. So, the farmers sowed 1.1 million hectares with winter grain crops (16%), with a projected area of 7.2 million hectares. In addition, winter rapeseed was sown on 882,000 hectares (99%) with a projected area of 888,000 hectares.