Foreign Minister of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba and Foreign Minister of Greece Nikolas Dendias in a telephone talk expressed a readiness to resume flights between Ukraine and Greece from July 1 under condition of stable epidemiological situation in two countries, the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine. The foreign ministers of the two countries also exchanged experiences on countering the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus and overcoming the consequences of the pandemic.
Dendias invited Kuleba to pay a working visit to Greece, when circumstances allow. Kuleba accepted the invitation.
He congratulated his colleague on the Greek Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and urged him to give priority to Ukraine’s topics in the focus of attention to this organization. The Greek minister in response assured that Greece has always supported Ukraine’s European integration aspirations.
Structure of export of services in 2019 (graphically)
Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak has said that a new ambassador of Ukraine to France will be appointed next week.
“Finally we will have a new ambassador to France, next week,” he said during a meeting of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky with businessmen in Khmelnytsky region on Wednesday, when asked by a participant of the meeting to help businesses establish contact with Ukraine’s embassies in a range of countries.
Oleh Shamshur has been working as Ambassador of Ukraine to France since October 2014.
State-controlled Ukrgasbank (Kyiv) does not plan to pay dividends for 2019, according to the agenda of an annual remote meeting of shareholders, scheduled for July 7, posted on the bank’s website.
“Given the restrictions established by Article 31 of the law on joint-stock companies, payment of dividends on Ukrgasbank shares won’t be carried out in 2019,” the document says.
According to the agenda, the supervisory board proposes to distribute the profit received by Ukrgasbank in 2019 in the amount of UAH 1.29 billion as follows: UAH 128.9 million (10%) is to be allocated to the reserve fund, and UAH 1.16 billion (90%) to cover losses of the previous years.
Ukrgasbank was established in 1993. The state represented by the Ministry of Finance owns 94.9409% of the shares of the financial institution.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), as of May 1, 2020 Ukrgasbank ranked fourth (UAH 148.589 billion) in terms of total assets among 75 banks operating in the country.
Ukrainian enterprises in January-May of this year reduced export of scrap metal by 54.8% compared to the same period last year, to 16,489 tonnes (36,515 tonnes were exported in January-May 2019).
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service, in terms of money, scrap exports fell by 58.1%, to $4.181 million.
In January, 2,865 tonnes of scrap metal were exported, in February some 8,014 tonnes, in March 493 tonnes, in April 256 tonnes, and in May 4,861 tonnes.
At the same time, in January-May of this year, the country reduced imports of scrap metal in natural terms by 76.2% compared to the same period last year, to 6,841 tonnes. In monetary terms, this indicator decreased by 49.9%, to $7.411 million.
Scrap metal was imported mainly from Turkey (65.46% of supplies in monetary terms), the Russian Federation (26.52%) and the Netherlands (5.07%), exports were made to Turkey (78.41%), the Netherlands (11.29%), and Germany (7.22%).
In addition, the metal enterprises of Ukraine in January-May 2020 imported 1,602 tonnes of products of direct reduction of iron from ore according to code 7203 (hot briquetted iron), which is a substitute for cast iron and scrap metal, in the amount of $481,000, whereas in January-May 2019 they did not import this product from the Russian Federation and did not export it.
The volume of services rendered by Ukrainian enterprises in January-March 2020 amounted to UAH 226.97 billion, which is 5.5% more in comparable prices than in the same period in 2019 (UAH 215.2 billion), the State Statistics Service has reported.
According to the report, the volume of services sold to the population accounted for 23.1% of the total volume of services sold.
The State Statistics Service recalled that in the first quarter of 2019, the volume of services provided by Ukrainian enterprises increased by 2.7%, in the second quarter by 3.5%, in the third quarter by 6.2%, and in the fourth quarter by 0.2%.
