Ukrainian authorities want to pass JSC Ukrzaliznytsia to management of Deutsche Bahn AG (DB), Germany’s operator of railways, for 10 years, Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk has said. “Yes, we want to pass our railways to the Germans to manage it for 10 years,” Honcharuk said at the Ukrainian Breakfast in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday morning.
He added that the authorities of Ukraine associate not only expectations about the development of Ukrzaliznytsia with this decision. “This is ecosystem-based issue, which should show that Ukraine is unprecedentedly open for investment, for the world, for new standards,” the prime minister said.
Honcharuk said that, despite the fact that it is still necessary to negotiate and agree on the details of the decision and documents, “a political decision on this has already been taken and this is a huge step.”
Later, at a briefing on the sidelines of the Ukrainian Breakfast, the prime minister said that the relevant agreement with DB will be “early February.”
As reported, on January 22, 2020, the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine and Deutsche Bahn in Davos, Switzerland, signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic partnership in the industry and the development of Ukrzaliznytsia.
“This memorandum is not yet about privatization, and not about concession, but about strategic partnership. That’s great news,” Honcharuk said, when opening a meeting of the National Investment Council under the president of Ukraine in Davos.
He said that the country needs such assistance to improve the situation on the country’s railway and realize its logistics potential.
At the same time, speaking about the memorandum, in his Twitter account, Honcharuk said that German specialists will reform the management mechanisms of Ukrzaliznytsia, and Ukraine will retain full control over the enterprise.
“I hope that German operational efficiency and zero tolerance for corruption will become the basis for changing the situation in Ukrzaliznytsia,” the prime minister wrote.
According to the text of the memorandum, the parties will study the possibilities of creating a strategic partnership between Ukrzaliznytsia and DB.
National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 23/01/20
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
Official rates of banking metals from national bank as of january 23
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
Ukraine boosted its electricity exports by 4.9% in 2019, to 6.469 billion kWh, the Ministry of Energy and Environment Protection has told. Electricity supplies from the Burshtyn TPP energy island to Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania rose by 17.1%, to 4.448 billion kWh.
Exports to Poland fell 2.4%, to 1.377 billion kWh.
Exports to Moldova fell 32.6%, to 644 million kWh.
In July, Ukraine resumed commercial imports of electricity. The year’s total was 2.699 billion kWh, including 909.8 million kWh from Slovakia, 851.3 million kWh from Belarus, 630.1 million kWh from Hungary, 286.3 million kWh from Russia, and 21.1 million kWh from Romania.
Due to crossflows related to the parallel work of the united energy system in Ukraine and systems in bordering countries (accounted for under contracts signed by Energomarket), Ukraine imported 41.6 million kWh of energy from Russia and 1 million kWh from Belarus in 2019.
BUYERS, ELECTRICITY, HUNGARY, MOLDOVA, POLAND, ROMANIA, SLOVAKIA
Transport enterprises of Ukraine (excluding the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as part of the Joint Forces Operation area) in 2019 increased cargo transportation by 8% compared to 2018, to 674.5 million tonnes, the State Statistics Service has said.
According to the report, the freight turnover of carriers for the specified period increased by 2.1%, to 338.9 billion tonne-kilometers.
According to statistics, in 2019 some 262.6 million tonnes of goods were transported by rail inside the country and for export, which is 1.9% less than in 2018.
Transportation of timber decreased by 58.3%, construction materials by 19.1%, scrap metal by 21.9%, coke by 12.1%, cement by 4.9%, coal by 6.4%, ferrous metals by 5%, oil and petroleum products by 5.7%.
At the same time, transportation of iron and manganese ore increased by 2.7%, grain and cereals by 21%, chemical and mineral fertilizers by 31.5%.
In the total volume of cargo transported by water, overseas accounted for 41%. The volume of foreign cargo transportation increased by 2.3%.
In 2019, compared with 2018, the volume of goods transported by pipelines rose. The handling of ammonia grew by 13%, gas by 1.1%, oil by 0.5%. Ammonia transit increased by 16.3%, gas transit by 3.3%. Oil transit decreased by 1.6%.
Farmak pharmaceutical company (Kyiv) plans to invest UAH 1.2 billion in production development in 2020, which is 30% more than last year, and also increase the number of staff. According to the company’s press service, with reference to executive director of Farmak Volodymyr Kostiuk, in 2019 investments for these purposes amounted to UAH 900 million.
“In 2019, we invested about UAH 900 million in the development of production, in 2020 we plan to invest UAH 1.2 billion. The expansion of production leads to an increase in the number of personnel,” he said.
According to Kostiuk, the issue of personnel remains acute for the company.
“We create the most comfortable working conditions for specialists and provide competitive wages. Today we compete with European companies in terms of wages in relation to the average check in a particular country. In 2019, wages at Farmak increased by 14%,” he said.
The top manager also said that in 2019 Farmak expanded its cold, allergological, neurological, gastroenterological product portfolios and is working on complex drugs that it plans to bring to the market in 10-15 years.
The main areas remain cold, endocrinological, gastroenterological, cardiological, neurological portfolios.
