The grain harvest in Ukraine may grow from 61.3 million tonnes in 2017 to 62 million tonnes in 2018, according to the UkrAgroConsult consulting agency. “This year the gross harvest will reach the level of 62 million tonnes. Exports will amount to 41 million tonnes for the 2017/2018 marketing year. In the next marketing year we forecast growth of exports by at least one million tonnes,” grain market analyst at UkrAgroConsult Maryna Sych said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine.
According to her, this year there is a competition between crops due to the fact that the timing of sowing early and late spring crops has almost coincided.
“Now we have virtually a week to fulfill the barley sowing plan, as further it will be necessary to start sowing maize and sunflower. The question of implementing the plan for sowing spring barley remains open,” she said. UkrAgroConsult expects in the current conditions that the area under barley this year will be reduced, the yield will be about 7.7-7.8 million tonnes. If the farmers manage to fulfill the barley sowing plan, the crop can reach eight million tonnes against 8.3 million tonnes in 2017.
The area under maize, according to the agency, will remain at last year’s level. There may be a slight increase in the area if it is necessary to compensate for the reduction of barley crops. The maize harvest is projected at 26 million tonnes, or at 28 million tonnes if the sowing area is increased, compared to 24.1 million tonnes in 2017.
Headquartered in Kyiv has acquired the Galeria Eden shopping center in Zgorzelec (Poland) with a gross area of 8,500 square meters from Poland’s DNB Assets Holdco, the press service of the Ukrainian fund reported on Wednesday. “During the year, Focus Estate Fund together with the Polish development partner Młyn Retail Park will carry out work to expand the retail area to 10,000 square meters and change the format of the shopping center to a retail park,” the fund said.
According to the fund, investments in the re-concept will amount to more than EUR 1.5 million. It will take about a year to complete the project.
According to the fund, the international company JLL became the managing company of the facility.
“Due to the successful location of the retail park directly on the border with Germany, we expect a significant increase in the flow of buyers from Germany. For this we invest in modern architectural solutions that will give a new life cycle to the facility, and through the increase in the retail area attract more tenants,” the fund said, quoting its managing partner Andriy Kozin.
According to the Focus Estate Fund, the facility is located in a large shopping cluster in the village directly on the border with Germany, next to the German city of Görlitz, a major cultural and industrial center of the country.
The anchor tenants of the shopping center are Jysk, Komfort, Abra Meble, Pepco and Takko Fashion.
As reported in October 2017, the Focus Estate Fund acquired Most Retail Park in Most (the Czech Republic) with a total area of 6,500 square meters. In 2016, the fund acquired Centro Ostrava Retail Park in the Czech Republic and Galeria Sandomierz in Poland. The company plans to invest about EUR 50 million within two or three years in the development of commercial medium-sized commercial property projects in Eastern Europe.
The Ukrainian subsidiary of A.P. Moeller-Maersk Group hopes that cargo flow from/to Ukraine would increase, the company said in a press release spread among journalists at a meeting of the first vessel of the ME3 service from Maersk in the TIS container terminal on Wednesday. “Maersk Line Ukraine annually delivers the flow of containers at the level of 200,000 TEU to Ukraine, while it is less than 1% of the total volume of transportation of the company around the world. However, the operator expects to increase cargo traffic,” the company said in the press release.
The company is confident that the cooperation of TIS with Maersk will be long-term and large-scale one.
“TIS has the best port and rail infrastructure in Ukraine, which is very important for our customers,” the press service of the company said, citing General Director of MaerskLine Ukraine Roman Koloyanov as saying.
As reported, ships of Denmark’s Maersk Line, a large global container operator, would not enter the Odesa maritime merchandise port from April 1, 2018.
Germany is ready to allocate EUR 10 million for projects of the Energy Efficiency Fund and EUR 4 million for the training of energy auditors and training of the Fund’s employees, Minister for Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities Hennadiy Zubko has said. “The German government is ready to sign an agreement with IFC – International Finance Corporation – on adding additional EUR 10 million to the Multi-Donor Fund for co-financing the projects of the Energy Efficiency Fund of Ukraine,” Zubko wrote on his Facebook page.
He also said that the German government had agreed on the implementation of the project of technical assistance to Ukraine in the training of professional energy auditors and training of the Fund’s employees in the amount of EUR10 million.
As earlier reported, the Cabinet coordinated a joint program with the EU for financing the Energy Efficiency Fund in the amount of EUR 268 million. According to the Ministry of Regional Development’s press service, EU assistance in 2018 will be EUR 50 million, in 2019 – EUR 54 million. The press service also recalled that the financing of the Energy Efficiency Fund from the state budget will be UAH 1.6 billion in 2018.
The welding electrode manufacturer PJSC PlasmaTec (Vinnytsia) saw a 38% rise in electrode production and sales in 2017, to over 40,000 tonnes, according to a company financial report. “This is the highest figure among manufacturers of welding electrodes of Ukraine and Belarus,” the company said. At the same time, the increase in production and sales relates to the implementation of the program for the renewal of fixed assets: in 2017, more than UAH 98.5 million was invested in production (in 2016 – UAH 109.4 million), including UAH 75.77 million for modernization and purchase of real estate (UAH 35.37 million), and UAH 22.75 million – for the purchase of new equipment and modernization (UAH 74 million).
According to the report, the consolidated net income of PJSC PlasmaTec increased by 43.5% in 2017, to UAH 1.335 billion, the net profit coincides with the earlier announced preliminary UAH 143.86 million (almost doubled on 2016).
The main rivals of the company are Paton Welding Plant, Vistec LLC and BaDM LLC. The enterprise’s products are sold through a wholesale network in 19 regions of Ukraine, through intermediaries in Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Lithuania, Belarus, Romania, Poland, Russia and Kazakhstan. This year PlasmaTec plans, in particular, to expand the geography of sales in the EU countries, as well as in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.
The total cost of investment projects in the Ukrainian agricultural sector as of early 2018 was estimated at almost UAH 41.3 billion, according to a posting on the website of the Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry of Ukraine. The ministry said that, a total of 474 investment projects are being implemented in agriculture, including 23.6% in the grain and industrial crops processing and storage segment, 12.4% in the pig breeding segment and 12.2% in the vegetable and fruit storage segment.
The main source of financing of capital investment are own funds of producers (74.3%). The cost of investment projects varies from UAH 100,000 to UAH 9.6 billion.
The largest number of investment projects is being implemented in Poltava (69), Lviv (64), Vinnytsia (48), Chernivtsi (43) and Cherkasy (41) regions.
The ministry anticipates that the implementation of these projects would create some 16,000 new jobs.
As of January 1, 2017, a total of 380 investment projects were implemented in Ukraine in agriculture. Their aggregate cost was UAH 27.9 billion.
