Main trade partners of Ukraine in % from total volume (import from other countries to Ukraine) in 2019
Astarta agricultural holding, the largest sugar producer in Ukraine, has launched the first phase of a five-year investment program to update agricultural machinery and introduce IT instruments for agricultural management of AgriChain company, which is part of the agricultural holding structure.
According to the statement on Astarta’s website, the investments in 2020 were aimed at purchasing 31 tractors (John Deere), 21 grain, row crops and beet seeders (John Deere, Horsch Maestro, Pöttinger Terrasem, Kinze, Monopil, Amity Technology).
In addition, as part of the investment program, two self-propelled sprayers (John Deere), four cultivators (Amity Technology), three seed harrows of Ukrainian production and ten sets of vacuum systems for the conversion of row seeders were purchased.
New John Deere tractors with a capacity of 345 hp equipped with accurate navigation and telemetry systems that will integrate with AgriChain Farm and AgriChain Scout modules.
“The data obtained in real time will provide an opportunity to receive information, form informed decisions and create accurate daily tasks to increase technological field operations,” Astarta reported.
The agricultural holding said that in a few weeks Astarta will begin the spring sowing campaign, preparations for which are ongoing. In particular, winter wheat fertilizing is being completed and soil is being prepared for sowing spring crops.
The company’s crop rotation in 2020 will not change, since traditionally the main spring crops are sugar beets (35,000 hectares), corn (65,000 hectares), soybean (28,000 hectares) and sunflower (41,000 hectares).
Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It consists of eight sugar factories, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of 243,000 hectares and dairy farms with 25,000 animals, seven elevators, a biogas complex and a soybean processing plant in Poltava region (Globino Processing Plant LLC).
After three years of profitable work in 2018, Astarta received a net loss of EUR 21.11 million. Its revenue decreased by 18.8%, to EUR 372.22 million, and EBITDA fell by 52.4%, to EUR 56.87 million in 2018.
The AgriChain Farm module is designed to operate and communicate across all production services. It combines all the stages and processes of the production chain: from planning to execution and reflection. The AgriChain Scout information system is currently at the final stages of testing. It combined monitoring of the state of crops, agrochemical field certificates, meteorological data, plant vegetation status (NDVI), systematic monitoring of crops and assessment of its condition, etc.
Other modules are under development and are simultaneously being tested as pilot projects at Astarta’s subsidiary agricultural companies.
The airports of Ukraine in January-February 2020, according to recent data, served 3.237 million passengers, which is 15% more than in the same period in 2019.
According to the website of the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine, passenger flow of Ukrainian airports on international routes during the indicated period rose by 16.6%, to 1.913 million people.
According to statistics from the agency, in January-February 2020 Ukrainian airlines served 1.547 million people, which is 3.1% more than in the same period in 2019. Of these, 1.385 million passengers were transported in international traffic (an increase of 3% compared to January-February 2019).
At the same time, for the two months of 2020, Ukrainian airlines operated 12,700 commercial flights (a decrease of 2.9%), including 10,500 international flights (a decrease of 2.6%).
As reported, in 2019 Ukrainian airports served 24.337 million passengers, which is 18.5% more than in 2018.
The State Agency of Automobile Roads of Ukraine (Ukravtodor) has begun road repair and construction work at 118 sites in 18 regions, Head of Ukravtodor Oleksandr Kubrakov said on his Facebook page.
He noted that 100 objects are funded by the State Road Fund and 18 in the framework of cooperation between Ukravtodor and international financial organizations.
“Mostly preparatory work is being done at this stage, but, for example, asphalt is already laid on roads H-30 and H-09,” he added.
Other facilities, he said, are still at the public procurement stage. In 2020, some 289 tenders were announced, the total expected cost is UAH 28 billion.
Dniprospetsstal Electrometallurgical Plant (Zaporizhia) increased finished steel production by 4.4% in January-February 2020, compared to the same period in 2019, to 23,160 tonnes, steel production increased by 4.6%, to 32,788 tonnes.
According to the company’s press release, some 18,639 tonnes of steel were smelted in February, which is 31.7% higher than in January. Finished steel production amounted to 12,352 tonnes in February, which is 14.3% more than in January.
The total cost of commodity products produced in February 2020 amounted to UAH 509.833 million in current prices, for the two months of 2020 it amounted to over UAH 1.032 billion (commodity production amounted to over UAH 1.355 billion in January-February 2019, and it amounted to UAH 594.671 million in February 2019).
“In February, the plan for steel delivery at steel melt workshop No.5, powder metal workshop and drop hammer workshop was exceeded. In comparison with the planned tasks, the shipments to forge and press workshop and the hot pressing department of powder metal workshop were increased,” the press release says.
Kyivstar has connected another 514 Ukrainian settlements in 22 regions to the 4G network, the company has said.
The operator, in particular, extended communications to Bilozerske, Sviatohorsk, Ostrom (Donetsk region), Zolote (Luhansk region), as well as to hundreds of villages in the territory where more than 306,000 people live. 4G communications services in the Kyivstar network became available for more than 76% of the population of Ukraine.
According to the operator, in 2019 the volume of data traffic use increased by 54% compared to 2018, to 4,263 MB per subscriber. Moreover, more than 50% of all traffic was used in the 4G network.
As reported, Kyivstar in 2019 increased revenue by 19.6%, to UAH 22.392 billion, EBITDA by 39.4%, to UAH 14.683 billion. The number of mobile operator subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2019 decreased by 0.6% compared to the same period in 2018, to 26.2 million, while the number of fixed-line subscribers increased by 10.8%, to 1 million.
Kyivstar is the largest Ukrainian telecommunications operator. It provides communications and data transfer services based on a wide range of mobile and fixed technologies, including 3G. By the end of 2018, its services were used by about 26.4 million mobile subscribers and about 900,000 fixed Internet customers.
