The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has estimated growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) of Ukraine in 2017 at 2.1%.
“The negative impact from stopping trade with government uncontrolled territories for real GDP in 2017 was lower than expected at the beginning of the year – 0.9 percentage points compared with 1.3 percentage points respectively,” the central bank said in an inflation report on Friday.
The NBU explains this by a more rapid reorientation of metallurgical enterprises to new sources of raw materials supplies amid the improvement of the external situation and the growth of domestic demand.
According to the report, in the fourth quarter, according to the estimates of the National Bank, GDP growth slowed to 1.5% against the same quarter of the previous year, while in the third quarter it was 1.5%.
“This, first of all, was due to a significant decline in crop production due to low yields of late grain crops and industrial crops,” the regulator said.
The NBU said that there was an increase in production in the processing industry, particularly in machine building, chemical and metallurgical production, which almost completely compensated for the further decline in output in the mining and power generation sectors, primarily reflecting the impact from the gap in the production and logistics ties with the government uncontrolled territories in Donbas at the beginning of the year.
As reported, the NBU late January raised its forecast for GDP growth in 2018 to 3.4% from 3.2%, while worsening the forecast for 2019 to 2.9% from 3.5%.
In 2016, the Ukrainian economy grew by 2.3% after a decline of 9.8% in 2015 and 6.6% in 2014. According to the State Statistics Service, in 2017, quarterly GDP growth gradually slowed down – from 2.5% in the first quarter to 2.3% in the second and 2.1% in the third. Data of the State Statistics Service for the fourth quarter and entire 2017 are not yet available.
The joint project of PJSC Ukrzaliznytsia represented by the branch Lisky, Maersk Line and TIS LLC (Odesa region) – a container train that runs from the Kyiv-Lisky station to the Chornomorska station (TIS) at Yuzhny port – was launched on January 31.
According to an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent, Ukrzaliznytsia Acting Chairman Yevhen Kravtsov, State Secretary of the Infrastructure Ministry of Ukraine Andriy Haluschak, TIS co-owner and Director General Andriy Stavnitser, Maersk Ukraine LTD Director General Roman Koloyanov, Director of the Lisky branch Ruslan Husak and Deputy Head of the Kyiv customs service of the State Fiscal Service Irakli Katamadze took part in the event on the occasion of the train departure.
The train will run weekly to provide a comprehensive service for the delivery of goods in containers directly to recipients under a “door-to-door” scheme within the global delivery system of Maersk.
The TIS head said it is planned to carry 500 containers by the train per month.
OKKO-Retail LLC plans to begin the construction of a ski resort in Slavske (Lviv region) in 2019, head of the Slavske united territorial community Volodymyr Beha has said.
“The ski complex in Slavske should become the best one in Ukraine. OKKO-Retail (Galnaftogaz Concert) entered Slavske and has been paying taxes to the local budget for two years,” the expert told reporters during a press tour.
According to him, the construction of the resort will begin in 2019 on the northern slope of the Zakhar Berkut Mount from the village of Verkhnia Rozhanka.
“In 2018 there will be work with technical documentation, approval and land allocation, and in 2019 construction will begin,” he said.
According to the project, the second phase of construction provides for building on the Trostianets Mount. The whole complex will include up to 65 km of ski slopes.
The total duration of the project is three or five years, the volume of investments is up to $500 million.
OKKO-Retail (Slavske) was established in 2000. According to the state register, the owner of 99% in the company as of January 2018 was PJSC Galnaftogaz Concern, whose ultimate beneficiary is Vitaliy Antonov.
Ukraine since the beginning of the 2017/2018 marketing year (MY, July-June) and as of January 31, 2018 had exported 23.953 million tonnes of grain.
According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, the country has exported about 12.2 million tonnes of wheat, 3.9 million tonnes of barley, and 7.7 million tonnes of corn.
In addition, farmers exported 255,400 tonnes of flour.
As reported, with reference to the ministry, Ukraine in the 2016/2017 MY exported 43.9 million tonnes of grain.
According to the ministry’s forecasts, grain exports from Ukraine in the 2017/2018 MY will amount to 41 million tonnes.
Botiyevska wind power station (Zaporizhia region), part of DTEK RES, in 2017 increased its electricity production by 4.2% (by 25.916 million kWh) compared to 2016, to 639.142 million kWh, according to the calculations of Interfax-Ukraine based on data from the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry.
As reported, in 2011 DTEK began the construction of Botiyevska wind farm in Zaporizhia region and in October 2012 launched its first stage. At present the installed capacity of the plant is 200 MW.
DTEK RES’ portfolio, in addition to Wind Power with the operating 200 MW Botiyevska wind farm, also includes projects for the construction of other wind farms at various stages of development. The project to build Prymorska wind farm with a capacity of 200 MW is at the latest stage of development. The possibility of its implementation until 2020 is being considered.
In January 2017 DTEK signed a contract with General Electric Renewable Energy for the supply, installation and maintenance of 26 wind turbines with a capacity of 3 MW each for the construction of the first stage of Prymorska wind farm. The wind turbines will be delivered to Ukraine and installed on the site of Prymorska wind farm in 2018.
UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER VOLODYMYR GROYSMAN has said that the Verkhovna Rada should adopt 35 bills, which, in his opinion, will create conditions for improving the business climate and economic growth in the country.
“We are talking about 35 bills that are very necessary for us to accelerate economic growth. It is very important that this growth be not wavy and we keep this growth trend as much as possible,” he said at a government meeting in Kyiv on Wednesday.
According to him, the bills are only part of the state policy that will help the government create conditions for economic growth.
“A package of measures, following the adoption of the necessary bills in the Ukrainian parliament, will help create conditions that will be assessed by business, and the business will do its job. It will invest in the development of the national economy,” Groysman added.
He named a number of priorities for the government in 2018 that will help change the business environment and create conditions for rapid economic growth, in particular, ensuring transparent access to public resources for business, ensuring deregulation and improving the business climate, protecting business rights, easing access to finance, as well as promoting innovation.
