Official rates of banking metals from national bank as of August 28
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 28/08/19
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
Capital investment in Ukraine in January-June 2019 grew by 12.3%, while in the first quarter of 2019 – by 17.8%, the State Statistics Service reported on Tuesday. According to the State Statistics Service, after an increase in investments in agriculture, forestry and fisheries in the first quarter by 2.1%, a decrease of 8.6% was recorded in the first half of the year.
In wholesale and retail trade, growth slowed down from 18.9% to 6.3%, in transport, storage, postal and courier activities – from 20.8% to 4.7%, while in industry – from 32% to 30.8%, and in construction, an increase from 3.4% to 5% was recorded.
According to the State Statistics Service, in the first half of 2019, UAH 234 billion of capital investment was disbursed (excluding the temporarily occupied Crimea, Sevastopol and the JFO area).
In the regional context, the largest increase in capital investment in the first half of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 was recorded in Volyn (by 76%), Kherson (by 68.5%), Mykolaiv (by 39.5%), Kyiv (by 25, 85), Chernivtsi (by 25.7%), Dnipropetrovsk (by 23.6%), Ternopil (by 21.4%), Luhansk (by 16.2%), Vinnytsia (by 12.3%), and Donetsk ( in 12.6%) regions.
According to statistics, capital investments for the reporting period decreased in Chernihiv (by 17%), Zakarpattia (by 15.8%), Zhytomyr (by 15.2%), Ivano-Frankivsk (by 9%), Odesa (by 7.2%), Rivne (5.1%) and Zaporizhia (4.4%) regions.
The main source of financing capital investment remains the own funds of enterprises and organizations, due to which 73.3% of the total volume of all investments has been used.
A significant share of capital investments was made in machinery, equipment and vehicles – 47.7%, buildings and structures – 43.6% of all investments.
The State Automobile Roads Agency of Ukraine, also known as Ukravtodor, plans to introduce the toll system for large trucks for using Ukrainian roads.
“It was my initiative to implement intelligent transport systems in Ukraine. In addition to Weight-in-Motion (WiM), this includes recording speeding and traffic analysis systems using cameras. The fourth part of the global intellectual transport system of Ukraine is tolling, that is, collecting payments from heavy vehicles for traveling on Ukrainian roads,” acting Head of Ukravtodor Slawomir Nowak said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
He believes that the introduction of the toll will be a serious legislative change for Ukraine, which will significantly improve the condition of roads in the country.
“We need to pass a law that will regulate this toll. We urgently need to introduce an additional source for the Road Fund. There is a European principle: trucks, especially those that earn on transportation, must pay more for traveling on roads,” the acting head of the agency said.
According to Nowak, the volumes of road destruction due to overloaded transport are huge.
“The problem with overloaded tracks in Ukraine is very, very big,” he said.
State-owned enterprise National Nuclear Generating Company Energoatom and JSC Turboatom (Kharkiv) signed the five year (2020-2024) program on modernizing equipment of Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPPs) on Tuesday.
According to a press release of Energoatom, the program involves the replacement of eight turbine condensers of nuclear power reactors, including four Russian-made condensers. After replacing the condensers, the total increase in power of reactors will be about 400 MW.
The document also provides for the modernization of flowing parts of turbine cylinders with a capacity of 200 MW and 1000 MW, including five turbines with a capacity of 1000 MW as part of import substitution. Modernization includes the replacement of rotor blades on existing rotors and diaphragms, which will increase the turbine’s power and its efficiency.
It is also planned to upgrade the high-pressure cylinders of the turbines of the Zaporizhia NPP, starting in 2020. Modernization of turbines will increase the capacity and efficiency of existing reactors of Ukrainian NPPs by 10%, which will provide a power increase of 70-100 MW at each reactor.
In addition, on Tuesday in Enerhodar (Zaporizhia region), an agreement was signed between Atomkomplekt (a separate division of Energoatom) and Turboatom for the manufacture and supply of a block-modular condenser for replacing the condenser of the K K-1000-60/1500 turbine at reactor five of Zaporizhia NPP in April 2020.
The parties also discussed a long-term repair program for the replacement of used spare parts.
“Four years ago, we gave a new powerful start to our cooperation, which is not only servicing the turbine park, but also the replacement and modernization of equipment. This will allow us to increase and improve the efficiency of nuclear power plants, to increase the generation of electric energy, which is important in conditions a new market, when every additional kilowatt-hour produced gives additional income,” Energoatom President Yuriy Nedashkovsky said.
According to the CEO of Turboatom Victor Subbotin, the volume of modernization at Energoatom for five years will exceed UAH 6 billion, which is a significant contribution to the utilization of production capacities and personnel of the enterprise.
The State Automobile Roads Agency of Ukraine, also known as Ukravtodor, is developing a five-year program for repair of 24,000 km of international, national and regional highways worth UAH 500 billion, acting Head of Ukravtodor Slawomir Nowak has said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
“Now, at the request of the President’s Office, we are preparing a program of repairs of the country’s main roads of M-N-R types with a total length of 24,000 km. We are calculating about UAH 500 billion for this program for five years,” he said.
The head of the state agency said that over the past few years, Ukraine has significantly increased prices for the main materials from which the asphalt mix is made: bitumen has doubled in price, and crushed stone prices grew 2.6 times.
He also said that he was considering attracting funds from international financial institutions (IFIs) for this program: European banks and the World Bank.
Earlier, Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said in the media that it is needed 10 years and UAH 1 trillion for the repair of roads in Ukraine.
