Industrial production in Ukraine in May 2019 increased by 1.6% compared with May 2018, after a rise of 5.2% in April, 2.1% in March, and a fall of 1.8% and 3.3% in February and January respectively, the State Statistics Service has reported. The agency said that with the adjustment to the effect of calendar days, industrial production in May 2019 compared with May 2018 also increased by 0.6%.
The service said that compared with the previous month, industrial production in May fell by 0.85%, and taking into account the seasonal factor it dropped by 0.9%.
In general, in January-May 2019, the growth in industrial production compared to the same period of 2018 is 0.9%, according to the State Statistics Service.
The rise in processing industry in May 2019 from May 2018 was 1.1%, in extracting industry and quarrying some 2.3%. The figure in the supply of electricity, gas, steam and conditioned air reduced by 2.5%.
The BlaBlaBus bus low-cost carrier, founded by the world’s largest international online service of the search for automobile travel companions BlaBlaCar (France), plans to enter the Ukrainian market. “Our first BlaBlaBus bus route has already been launched in Germany. We plan to connect 60 cities across Germany and Benelux with our routes in the first year of operation. Then we will expand the BlaBlaBus coverage to the whole of Europe. In our non-European markets where we have already started connecting professional bus carriers to our platform, we will also redouble our efforts in this direction, with a focus on Russia, Ukraine and Latin America,” co-founder and CEO of BlaBlaCar Nicolas Brusson said in an interview for the Journal.Octobus magazine.
According to him, the BlaBlaBus service will help reduce the number of cars on the roads, as well as reduce the cost of travel.
BlaBlaBus launched its first bus route in Germany on June 11, 2019. In 2018, BlaBlaCar bought the French carrier Ouibus, on the basis of which BlaBlaBus was created. Before the merger, the French service had more than 300 bus routes around Europe.
BlaBlaCar (France) is the world’s largest international online service of the search for automobile travel companions, it was founded in 2006. The company operates in 22 countries, the total clientele of the project exceeds 70 million people.
BlaBlaCar entered the Ukrainian market in early 2014, having bought the Ukrainian startup Podorozhniki.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and founder of the Japanese Internet company Rakuten Hiroshi Mikitani have discussed plans to enhance the company’s presence in Ukraine, in particular the expansion of the office in Odesa and the opening of a new office in Kyiv. Zelensky and Mikitani met on June 25, the presidential website said.
In Ukraine, Rakuten is best known as the owner of the Viber service.
Hiroshi Mikitani says Ukraine is a priority market for Rakuten. He expressed his willingness to support the idea of increasing the number of investment projects from Japan.
He also approvingly responded to Zelensky’s initiative “The State in a Smartphone” and expressed a desire to cooperate closely under this project, since Viber is an integral part of the smartphone of most Ukrainians.
Following the meeting, Zelensky invited Mikitani to join the National Investment Council whose secretary is IT entrepreneur David Arakhamia.
DTEK Renewables, an operating company that manages DTEK assets in the field of renewable energy sources, has concluded a deal on foreign investment of EUR 90 million in the construction of the stage 2 of Prymorska wind farm (Zaporizhia region).
The press service said that the loan was issued by a consortium of German banks (Bayerische Landesbank, KfW IPEX-Bank, and Oddo BHF Aktiengesellschaft) with risk coverage provided by German export credit agency (ECA) Euler Hermes and Spanish CESCE. The loan term is 10 years after the technical commissioning of the plant.
This is the third renewable energy project of Euler Hermes and DTEK. Earlier the agency insured financial deals for the construction of the stage 1 of Prymorska wind far and Botiyevska wind farm, the first big wind energy project of DTEK. For CESCE this is the first agreement in Ukraine in recent years.
“DTEK has proven once again its status as a key investor in the renewable energy sector in Ukraine. Last year, the company’s investments accounted for about a half of the total investments in the renewable energy sector. The latest loan-based financing for the construction of the Prymorska wind farm strengthens the company’s role as a long-term partner for leading international financial institutions and industrial equipment supply companies,” CEO of DTEK Renewables Philipp Leckebusch said on the press release.
The construction of the 100 MW phase 2 of the Prymorska wind farm started in 2018. The wind park will consist of 26 wind turbines manufactured by GE, with a capacity of 3.8 MW each. Upon completion of all the works (phase 1 and 2), Prymorska wind farm will be equipped with 52 GE 3.8-130/137-110HH wind turbines, one of the most innovative GE onshore turbines. The total value of the investments will be more than EUR 150 million.
The active phase of construction is currently ongoing: all access roads, pile fields and wind turbine foundations have been already completed, installation of the first wind turbines has begun. Completion of commissioning of the whole facility is planned for September 2019, the company reported.
When both phases are commissioned, the 200 MW Prymorska wind farm will generate between 650-700 million kWh of green energy. The operation of the facility will reduce CO2 emissions by 700,000 tonnes per year, through the reduction of use of conventional generation facilities.
The State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumers’ Rights Protection has agreed on the form of the international veterinary certificate for milk and dairy export to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
This was reported on the website of the state service on June 24.
As reported, Ukraine agreed on certificates for export of dairy products to Oman and Qatar as well as for export of beef and products made of it to Saudi Arabia.
In 2018, Ukraine opened 85 export markets for various types of products and increased the number of enterprises that received the right to export food products of animal origin. A total of 126 producers of the country can export food products to EU countries.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has changed composition of the National Investment Council, appointing himself head of the council.
“The Council includes: the Prime Minister of Ukraine; the Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (by agreement); the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine; the Minister of Finance of Ukraine; the Minister of Justice of Ukraine; and also representatives of the Ukrainian and foreign organizations and companies, business circles, experts on issues of attracting investments, development of entrepreneurship, specialists in the field of economics, finance (subject to their consent),” the president said in the amended paragraph 5 of the Regulations on the National Investment Council.
The Council consisting of 29 members was approved by the decree. Candidate to people’s deputies from the Servant of the People Party David Arakhamia is appointed Secretary of the Council. Also, the National Investment Council includes deputy heads of the Presidential Administration Oleksiy Honcharuk and Vadym Prystaiko, president’s advisor Andriy Yermak and president’s advisor Oleh Ustenko.
After the change of its composition, Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman, First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv, Minister of Finance of Ukraine Oksana Markarova and Minister of Justice Pavlo Petrenko are left members of the Coucil.
The remaining 19 people were introduced to the board by their consent: these are presidents, CEOs and board chairmen of large international companies and banking organizations.
The Council includes, President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Socar Rovnag Abdullayev, Board Chairman of Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. Ahmet Akca, CEO of Unilever N.V. (the U.K.) Alan Jope (replaced Paul Polman, who left the position of CEO), Board Chairman of Marubeni Corporation (Japan) Fumiya Kokubu (replaced Board Chairman Teruo Asada), Chief Operating Officer for Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) at Bank Citigroup Inc. (the United States) James C. Cowles, CEO at Metro AG Olaf Koch, and CEO at Engie SA (France) Isabelle Kocher.
The National Investment Council also includes by their consent: Chairperson of the Supervisory Board of Louis Dreyfus Holding B.V. (Netherlands) Margarita Louis-Dreyfus, President and CEO at Cargill Inc. (the United States) David W. MacLennan, Chairman and CEO at Arcelor Mittal Limited Lakshmi N. Mittal, President and CEO at Sumitomo Warm Group (Japan) Kuniharu Nakamura, President and CEO at Holtec International, Inc. (the United States) Kris Singh and Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine Yakiv Smolii.
The Council also includes Chairman and CEO of the DP World group of companies (United Arab Emirates) Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, CEO and President at Vitol Holding B.V. (the Netherlands) Ian Roper Taylor, Chief Operating Officer of the International Finance Corporation (the United States) Stephanie von Friedeburg (replaced Vice President of the IFC Dimitris Tsitsiragos), CEO of Bunge Limited (the United States) Gregory A. Heckman, President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Suma Chakrabarti and President and CEO of Posco Daewoo Corporation (South Korea) Young-Sang Kim.
At the same time, the following persons were removed from the National Council: Senior Vice President of General Electric, President and CEO of GE Transportation (the United States) Jamie S. Miller, CEO of the agro-industrial company Bunge Limited (the United States) Soren Schroder and Chairwoman of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd (China) Sun Yafang.
The decree comes into force on the day of its publication.
The National Investment Council was established in 2016 and it is an advisory body to the Presidential Administration. Its task is to attract investment into the country and improve the investment climate.
