KYIV. Dec 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – PJSC Ukrposhta (Kyiv) is interested in strategic partnership with a small bank without a problem loan portfolio, acting director general of Ukrposhta Ihor Smiliansky has said.
“According to our criteria, this should be a small bank, without a problematic loan portfolio. We are not interested in a large network of branches – we already have it,” he told journalists during a meeting in Kyiv, adding that negotiations with the banks are already underway.
According to Smiliansky, Ukrposhta is interested in the launch of providing banking services, while considering options for obtaining the necessary license, as well as buying an existing bank or signing a strategic partnership agreement with such a bank.
According to him, five or seven banks correspond to the Ukrposhta criteria in the Ukrainian market.
As reported, the NBU opposes the provision by Ukrposhta of banking services without an appropriate license.
KYIV. Dec 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – AGCO, a global leader in production and supply of agricultural machinery and equipment, will start selling tractors on the Ukrainian market in 2018 under the Valtra trademark.
“We have plans to launch one of the main brands of Valtra Corporation in Ukraine in 2018. The Valtra plant in Finland already produces tractors for European countries, including for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Georgia,” Marketing Director of AGCO Eastern Europe Anton Kostyrko said at the Agrarian Olympus Congress in Kyiv.
After the introduction of the new trademark to the Ukrainian market, AGCO plans to optimize and balance its distribution system.
“Distributors who sell Fendt equipment will also sell Valtra. We will comply with the European distribution system, because when focusing on a particular brand, it focuses on the supply of spare parts, the appropriate service tools and the correct distribution of human resources for servicing,” Kostyrko said.
According to him, in 2017 the market of imported tractors in Ukraine grew by 17% compared to 2016.
“In 2018, amid a decline in the yield of sunflower and corn in some regions of Ukraine we do not predict a large increase in sales of agricultural machinery,” the representative of AGCO said.
He said that now AGCO does not consider the possibility of localizing production of machinery in Ukraine, despite the program of 20% state compensation for purchased Ukrainian agricultural machinery.
AGCO sells a wide range of tractors, combines, feed processing equipment, self-propelled sprayers and tillage machines, attachments and original spare parts.
The AGCO machinery is sold under the Challenger, Fendt, Massey Ferguson and Valtra trademarks.
AGCO is headquartered in Duluth (the United States).
KYIV. Dec 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Kyschentsi LLC (Cherkasy region) would increase cattle numbers from 1,200 to 3,500 heads in two or three years, the director and founder of the company, Kees Huizinga has said at the Agrarian Olympus congress in Kyiv.
“Now we are building new premises of the dairy farm. We are finishing construction of a milking space and plan to launch it before New Year. We plan to boost cattle numbers from 1,200 to 3,500 heads in two or three years,” he said.
Now the company breeds Holstein cows and supplies milk to Ternopil dairy plant.
The company does not plan to expand its land bank.
“The bank we have – 16,000 ha – is a lot. People in Ukraine have lost their links with reality: 100,000-200,000 per company is too much. The main thing is to have added value of production, not a pile of land,” Huizinga said.
Along with dairy farms, the company plans to expand production of vegetable. This year Kyschentsi LLC sowed onions, carrots and cabbage on 400 ha.
“Next year the company could increase the fields to 500 ha, depending on water in ponds [vegetables are grown using drop irrigation]. We sell vegetables to supermarkets during the year. We have storage facilities. For example, the onion storage facilities can store 10,000 tonnes,” the director of the company said.
KYIV. Dec 7 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Textile-Kontakt (Kyiv), a leading textile fabric seller in Ukraine, seeks to open new cotton fabric production site TK-Bohuslav Textile (Bohuslav, Kyiv region) in January 2018, the company’s press service has told Interfax-Ukraine.
“This production site has been created on the basis of production facilities of Bohuslav Textile for improving the quality of fabric and designing of new fabric for the armed forces, enforcement agencies, producing workwear and expanding production from small pilot batches to bulk production,” the press service said.
The approximate investment plans for 2018 are UAH 20-30 million. It is planned to create 50-70 jobs.
The plan for the next year is production more than 2 million running meters of fabrics with special properties, namely rip-stop (TK warrior), Pixel type 3, type 4, oxford, tarpaulin and belt braid.
“This will allow Textile-Kontakt to establish a full cycle of production of military uniforms and ammunition for power structures – from processing cotton to tailoring finished products, improve the quality of finished products and reduce the cost of finished products, as well as produce in Ukraine fabric analogs that until today Ukrainian law enforcement agencies purchase for their needs from Russian manufacturers, for example, waterproof canvas 11292 SKPV,” the company said.
The press service reminds that by 2014 the enterprise provided the needs of the light industry of Ukraine with cotton fabrics at the expense of the production division of TK Donbas production association in Donetsk, where 700 people worked. The production capacity was about 2 million running meters of fabric per month.
At the first stages of the development of TK-Bohuslav Textile production capacity will be 90% less than at the factory in Donetsk (currently it is frozen), but in the company’s future plans are the expansion of production and output for export.
KYIV. Dec 7 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine and Belarus have decided to develop navigation across the Dnipro and Pripyat Rivers.
The press service of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine said Minister Volodymyr Omelyan gave the information after a meeting with Minister of Transport and Communications of Belarus Anatoly Sivak, which took place in Kyiv on December 5, 2017. The meeting was also attended by representatives of the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the EU Delegation to Ukraine.
The infrastructure minister said that Ukraine and Belarus are giving priority attention to the development of transport communications between the two countries, in particular, the work on improving navigation on common waterways is being intensified and is expanding.
“One of the priority areas for the development of relations between Ukraine and Belarus is to ensure conditions for the transit of goods by water transport across the territory of Ukraine, including using the river-sea class vessels,” Omelyan said.
He also pointed out the joint work of the two countries on the restoration of navigation between Ukraine and Belarus, in particular the E-40 waterway, and the creation of safe shipping conditions on the Dnipro and Pripyat rivers.
The minister of infrastructure of Ukraine thanked the minister of transport of Belarus for constructive and fruitful work on the approval of the road map project, which was signed at the ministerial meeting.
“The presidents of our states pay special attention to this issue. Today we have signed the road map with details and stages of the implementation of projects to develop navigation on the Dnipro and Pripyat rivers,” Omelyan said.
The implementation of the provisions of the road map requires financial resources that are planned to be drawn from international financial institutions (IFIs) and donors.
The parties pointed out a positive pace in the growth of road transport and confirmed their interest in further increasing freight turnover between the countries. They also discussed other issues in the transport sector.
In addition, the parties agreed to increase the quota of permits for international transportation of passengers and goods by road to 65,000 units, and division by types of permits will be carried out taking into account the needs of carriers of the two countries.
In addition, the participants in the meeting spoke about the development of the North-South transport link across the territory of Ukraine and Belarus with the goal of providing optimal logistics schemes for the delivery of goods using the infrastructure of Belarus and Ukraine.
KYIV. Dec 7 (Interfax-Ukraine) – !FEST Holding (Lviv), developing a network of creative restaurants and projects, will double the capacity for beer production to almost one million liters per year, head and co-owner of the company Andriy Khudo has said.
“The capacity of our brewery Theater of Beer Pravda in the Market Square (Rynok Square) in Lviv is 500,000-600,000 liters per year. We will double the figure by launching a new brewery in the territory of the former Halychsklo plant,” he said.
According to him, in November the company began to use production capacity at the new site.
“Craft beer is a trend we caught a few years ago, the tradition of brewing development in the United States confirms it. Craft allows us to experiment with tastes. We do not pasteurize beer – it’s “live,” and we give a guarantee of one year for it,” the expert said.
He said !FEST has started exporting Pravda beer in small batches to Britain, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, and Belarus.
!FEST Holding was founded in 2007. In Ukraine, it develops a network of creative restaurants, coffee houses and other projects.
