The arrival of the first disbursement under a new Stand-By Arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and related financing can increase the country’s international reserves to more than $20.4 billion by the end of this year, Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Oleh Churiy has said.
“Our reserves can grow to more than it was on January 31, 2013, and they will exceed $20.4 billion,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Saturday.
Churiy specified that this forecast was made taking into account the expected arrival of about $400 million in external financing, which the government will raise under guarantees provided by the World Bank.
The NBU official recalled that Ukraine had received $1.4 billion in the first SBA disbursement in the past week, and EUR 500 million in the first tranche of the EU’s Macro-Financial Assistance was provided earlier this month.
As reported, after the receipt of the first SBA disbursement, the National Bank on December 21 reported the growth of the international reserves to $20.1 billion, which was a five-year maximum: the previous time such a level of the international reserves was recorded in January 2014.
The National Bank of Ukraine in early November lowered the forecast of the country’s international reserves for the end of 2018 to $19.2 billion from $20.7 billion, for 2019 to $18.6 billion from $18.8 billion and for 2020 to $19.1 billion from $19. 7 billion.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) has allowed Dragon Capital Investments Limited, a member of the group of companies (GC) Dragon Capital, to acquire an office building belonging to Kyiv-based Fortuna Bank, which is undergoing the liquidation procedure.
“Dragon Capital Investments Limited was permitted indirectly, through LLC Investcapital (Kyiv), to acquire assets, i.e. Kyiv-based non-residential premises owned by JSC Fortuna Bank,” the AMCU said.
As reported, in November 2018, Dragon Capital CEO Tomas Fiala said at a meeting of the European Business Association (EBA) that his company had bought “one facility for UAH 170 million” from the Deposit Guarantee Fund. According to the ProZorro.Sale platform, it was a Fortuna Bank office building at 35 Borychiv Tik Street in Kyiv’s Podilsky district. The lot included a non-residential building with an area of almost 4,000 square meters and a 0.085 ha plot of land.
JSC Fortuna Bank was designated as insolvent in January 2017.
ANTI-TRUST, DRAGON CAPITAL'S, FORTUNA BANK'S, OFFICE BUILDING
Myronivsky Hliboproduct Agroholding (MHP) will borrow EUR120 million (UAH 3.79 billion) in a loan from ING Bank N.V., PrJSC Zernoproduct MHP reported.
The company will act as a guarantor for this loan, it said in an announcement of the information disclosure system of Ukraine’s National Securities and Stock Market Commission.
PrJSC Zernoproduct MHP’s assets are estimated at UAH 6.103 billion, according to the latest financial statements. The ratio of loan value to asset value is 62%.
According to the MHP website, PJSC Zernoproduct MHP was established in 2004, it has 19 branches, two grain elevators, 23 dairy farms. Its land bank is 90,900 hectares.
The volume of construction work carried out in Ukraine in November 2018 increased by 1% year-over-year, while this indicator in October 2018 compared to October 2017 increased by 4.8%. The report does not include data from the occupied territory of Crimea and the temporarily uncontrolled territories in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the State Statistics Service of Ukraine said.
The volume of construction works in November 2018 compared to October 2018 grew by 0.4% (according to seasonally adjusted data, it decreased by 3.9%), whereas this indicator in October 2018 from September 2018 decreased by 5.2%.
In November 2018 compared to November 2017, the volume of work decreased in residential construction, and increased in non-residential and engineering. According to unadjusted data, the decline in residential construction was 9.3%. Non-residential construction saw a 1.2% increase. Construction of engineering structures grew by 4.8%.
In addition, according to the statistics service, the volume of construction works in the construction of residential buildings in November 2018 decreased by 11% compared to October 2018, non-residential buildings increased by 3.3%, engineering structures increased by 3.3%.
The fall in the volume of construction work in January-November 2018 compared with January-November 2017 was recorded in the city of Kyiv and 10 regions of Ukraine, in particular in Mykolaiv region (by 15.6%, to UAH 2.21 billion), Kirovohrad region (by 14.8%, to UAH 1.3 billion), Sumy region (by 12%, to UAH 1.09 billion) and Ternopil region (by 11.1%, to UAH 1.46 billion) regions.
Retail trade turnover in Ukraine, excluding the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol and Donbas, in January-November 2018 in comparable prices increased by 6.2% compared with January-November 2017, the State Statistics Service has reported.
Retail trade turnover in November 2018 rose by 1.2% compared with October, while by 5.6% from November 2017.
The largest growth in retail trade turnover in the first 11 months of 2018 compared to the same period in 2017 was observed in Luhansk (by 27.8%), Donetsk (by 14.7%), Poltava (by 12.4%), and Zakarpattia (by 12%) regions.
The leaders in absolute terms of the volume of retail turnover for the 11 months were Kyiv city (UAH 157.37 billion), Dnipropetrovsk (UAH 75.8 billion), Kharkiv (UAH 64.61 billion), Odesa (UAH 61.877 billion), Kyiv (UAH 58.828 billion), and Lviv regions (UAH 51.362 billion).
According to the service, retail trade turnover in Donetsk region in January-November 2018 compared to January-November 2017 increased by 14.7% (to UAH 25.65 billion), Luhansk region by 27.8% (to UAH 7.27 billion).
The State Statistics Service said that trade turnover at retail enterprises (legal entities) in November 2018 compared with November 2017 grew by 5.2%, and compared to October 2018 by 1.1%, amounting to UAH 59.496 billion, for the 11 months grew by 5.8%, to UAH 595.675 billion.
In the first 11 months of 2018, wholesale turnover at enterprises rose by 4.3% compared to the corresponding period last year and amounted to UAH 2.003 trillion.
