The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) is technically ready to issue the electronic hryvnia, although the central bank continues studying the expediency of issuing it, head of the financial sector reform department at the NBU Yevhen Stepaniuk has said. “A pilot project on the technical issue of the electronic monetary unit of Ukraine has been launched. From the technical point of view, there is a high level of readiness, but from the point of view of the expediency of issuing and going beyond the pilot’s limits, this issue is still being studied,” he said at a roundtable at the NBU on Thursday.
As reported, at the end of 2016, the NBU launched a research project on the possible introduction of e-hryvnia – the national currency based on blockchain technology.
According to the regulator, e-hryvnia can allow minimizing transaction costs for transferring money from one player in the payment market of Ukraine to another and simultaneously to conduct them with almost instantaneous speed.
Ukraine in January-June 2018 exported electricity worth $160.663 million, including $23.485 million in June alone. Hungary bought electricity worth $97.355 million, Poland $39.004 million, Moldova $20.483 million, other countries $3.821 million, Ukraine’s State Fiscal Service has said.
Exports of Ukrainian electricity in monetary terms in January-June-2018 increased by 17.8% compared to the same period in 2017 ($136.351 million).
Over the period under review, Ukraine imported electricity worth $0.803 million, in particular, electricity imports from the Russian Federation were estimated at $0.766 million, from Belarus at $0.035 million, from Moldova at $0.002 million.
As reported, Ukraine plans in 2018 to increase exports of electricity to the EU and Moldova by 13.3% from 2017 to 5.855 billion kWh. According to the forecast for 2018, deliveries from the Burshtyn TPP energy island to Hungary, Slovakia, Romania will be 3.6 billion kWh, to Poland 1.2 billion kWh, and to Moldova 1.055 billion kWh.
Ukraine by July 6 harvested 6.2 million tonnes of early grain and legumes from 2.09 million hectares (22% of the planned area) with a yield of 2.96 tonnes per hectare.
In particular, farmers harvested 3.77 million tonnes of winter wheat from 1.26 million hectares (20% of the forecast) with a yield of 3 tonnes per hectare, 4,900 tonnes of spring wheat from 1,900 hectares (1%) with a yield of 2.51 tonnes per hectare, Ukraine’s Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food said on Friday.
Some 2.11 million tonnes of winter barley was harvested from 631,500 hectares (76%) with a yield of 3.35 tonnes per hectare, 138,900 tonnes of spring barley from 73,900 hectares (5%) with a yield of 1.88 tonnes per hectares, and 171,500 tonnes of peas from 126,800 hectares (30%) with a yield of 1.35 tonnes per hectare.
In addition, 22 regions continue winter rapeseed harvesting: they have already threshed 756,300 tonnes of rapeseeds from 353,400 hectares (36% to the forecast) with a yield of 2.14 tonnes per hectare.
As of July 6, the harvesting campaign was under way in almost all regions of Ukraine, except for Kharkiv and Chernihiv regions.
The ministry predicts Ukraine will harvest over 60 million tonnes of grain in 2018. Last year, some 61.3 million tonnes of grain was gathered.
JSC Research and Industrial Center Borschahivka chemical and pharmaceutical plant plans by the end of 2018 to invest UAH 176 million, including in the completion of the upgrade of the new production line. “We invested UAH 76.9 million in development in 2017. Until the end of 2018, we intend to invest UAH 176 million in the production update. This money will go, including, to complete the construction of a new site for the production of pills and capsules, the launch of which is scheduled for 2019,” Director General of the plant Yulia Zdarevska told Interfax-Ukraine.
She said that the capacity of the new workshop will be 500 million pills and capsules, which will increase the total production capacity of these dosage forms by 27%.
Zdarevska also said that in the fourth quarter of 2020, the plant plans to put into operation a finished goods warehouse for 5,000 pallet positions.
In addition, the company plans to reconstruct the department of sterile antibiotics and a site for the production of medicines in vials, and intends to expand the capacity of the production site of lyophilic preparations.
“The renovation of equipment is only one of the components of the development of the plant in general. The purchase of new equipment and software is necessary, because we plan to expand production and output new products both to the domestic market and to foreign ones,” the plant’s director general said.
In addition, she recalled the company’s plans to expand the geography of exports and establish relations with foreign partners, invest in the development and conduct of research.
Currently, the plant’s medicines are manufactured in five main workshops, each of which fully complies with GMP standards, and production lines are equipped with modern high-tech equipment from leading European companies.
Class actions lawsuits are foreseen in Ukrainian legislation, although their tools are not regulated, and practice is not spread, according to lawyers polled by Interfax-Ukraine. Lawyer from Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners (EPAP) Ukraine law firm Yuriy Nekliayev said that class actions lawsuits are rather popular in legal practice of western countries. Court rulings on class actions lawsuits could synchronously defend the interests of a large circle of persons, which allows decreasing loading on courts and observing the balance between defending the public and personal interest.
The lawyer said that the main feature of class actions lawsuits is that if it is satisfied, the court decision will be binding for all members of the group who potentially incurred losses from the defendant’s actions, even if such persons did not take direct part in the lawsuit.
At the same time, he drew attention to the factor of choosing a representative who would act in court in the interests of the “injured” group of persons, since the possibility of satisfying the claim, which applies to a wide range of persons, largely depends on the professionalism and qualifications of the representative.
“In Ukraine, unfortunately, the category of class actions lawsuits is not clearly regulated by law, and therefore is not widely spread,” he said.
Nekliayev said that these claims can be filed, in particular, against tour operators/airlines.
He pointed out the unsettled state of this legal category as “a class action” in Ukraine, while the legislator introduced other procedural possibilities that allow for more rapid hearing of court cases. For example, the Ukrainian courts can unite a homogeneous case in one proceeding, if the basis for such lawsuits are the same circumstances (legal relationship) or they are closely related.
“Consumers of services, including tourism and air transportation services, have the opportunity of defending their rights by merging into nongovernmental organizations and submitting relevant lawsuits to the court by applying to already existing nongovernmental organizations to protect the rights of a certain group of consumers of goods or services, and personally applying to the court to reimburse the losses caused by a tour operator/air carrier and moral damage,” the lawyer said.
First Deputy Prime Minister and Economic Development and Trade Minister Stepan Kubiv has ordered to create a working group for drafting legislation amendments in the sphere of tourism and settling the situation on this market. The press service of the Economic Development and Trade Ministry of Ukraine reported on Thursday that on July 4, a meeting headed by Kubiv was held to settle the situation in Ukraine due to commercial conflict between tour operators and airlines.
“At the same time, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, within the framework of the current legislation, is deprived of effective instruments of influence on the players of the tourism market, so Kubiv instructed to create a working group that will draft proposals to amend the current legislation,” the press service said.
In particular, it is planned to strengthen licensing requirements for tour-operator activity, create an effective mechanism for realizing the civil liability of the tour operator to tourists, increase the amount of financial support for tour operators, establish the administrative responsibility of tour operators for violating legislation in the sphere of tourism and other things.
As it was reported, on June 30, massive delays and cancellations of charter flights began, as a result of which about 1,500 citizens of Ukraine were “stuck” in Tunisia, Albania and Georgia.
As the Bravo airline reported, the problem with the delivery of passengers and cancellation of flights arose due to a debt of the tour operator Oasis in the amount of UAH 25 million.
At the same time, Oasis called this information unreliable and laid the responsibility for disruption of flights to the airline.
