According to information on the website of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, on December 27 the document was returned with the signature of the president.
As reported, the Verkhovna Rada adopted as a whole bill No. 2240 on settling the issue of amber extraction, which provides for the introduction of uniform exploration permits with the right to produce amber for a period of five years on plots of up to 10 hectares through ProZorro electronic auctions.
This decision was supported by 279 MPs with the quorum being 226 votes.
According to the bill, access to amber deposits will be regulated by establishing the right of land easements and defining separate Article 971 of the Land Code for exploration and mining on disturbed lands.
In addition, the document introduces criminal liability for illegal mining and administrative liability for violation of mining requirements, as well as toughens liability for non-compliance with land reclamation requirements and the obligation to compensate for losses incurred.
Prominvestbank (PIB, Kyiv) has closed six branches in Ukraine since October 2019, leaving only one in Kyiv, the bank has told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to the report on the website of the financial institution, from January 3, 2020 all legal entities that are clients of Prominvestbank will be serviced in the bank branch at 28 Perova Boulevard.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine, at the beginning of 2019 the regional network of Prominvestbank totaled 56 branches.
As reported, at the end of November 2019 PIB announced the closure of current accounts of individual entrepreneurs, and in early December the termination of cooperation with Mastercard and termination of servicing the card accounts of legal entities.
The shares of the Ukrainian subsidiaries of Russian banks, including PIB, were seized in 2018 by the decision of a Ukrainian court in connection with the statement on securing a lawsuit of a number of companies related to businessman Ihor Kolomoisky, which had assets in Crimea.
The State Executive Service seized Prominvestbank’s shares, after which an auction for their sale was scheduled for August 28, 2019 (the starting price of the package is UAH 532.099 million), however, the PFTS exchange did not receive bids for its purchase within the prescribed period.
The Ukrainian architectural company Archimatika (Kyiv) has opened the office Archimatika Norge AS. in Oslo, Norway, the company said on its Facebook page.
“We are pleased to announce that Archimatika has opened an office in Oslo – Archimatika Norge AS. Our Norwegian department consists of nine experienced architects, but it will have all Archimatika resources in Kyiv with more than 250 architects, designers and engineers,” the company noted.
According to the report, Archimatika Norge AS will provide services of urban planning, designing of residential, office, commercial real estate, territory planning, research, technical supervision, development of technical documentation and supervision of construction projects.
Currently, the office in Norway has already taken up several projects at various stages, including, in particular, territory planning and preparation of documents.
Archimatika was founded in 2005 by architects Dmytro Vasilyev and Oleksandr Popov.
According to the company, more than 7.6 million square meters of residential and public buildings were designed during its operation. The project portfolio at the design stage as of December 2019 consists of more than 3.5 million square meters.
The company employs 270 people. Currently (December 2019), the company has three offices in Kyiv, Moscow, and Oslo.
Naftogaz Ukrainy Group in January-September 2019 increased its consolidated net profit by 27.4% (UAH 4.578 billion) compared to the same period in 2018, to UAH 21.309 billion. “Pretax profit in the nine months of 2019 amounted to UAH 28.9 billion, which is 26% more than for the same period last year. This result occurred mainly due to the performance of the Natural Gas Transit and Integrated Gas Business segments,” the report says.
According to the statements posted on the company’s website, its sales revenue in January-September 2019 decreased by 3.7% (by UAH 6.36 billion), to UAH 165.308 billion, while gross profit increased by 10.6% (by UAH 5.164 billion), to UAH 53.848 billion.
In terms of geography of sales revenues, the largest share fell to domestic revenues with UAH 106.748 billion against UAH 113.236 billion in January-September 2018, the Russian Federation (UAH 55.977 billion and UAH 55.931 billion), Europe (UAH 2.31 billion and UAH 2.109 billion), and Egypt (UAH 273 million and UAH 392 million).
Naftogaz Ukrainy unites the largest oil and gas producing enterprises of the country. The group is a monopolist in transit and storage of natural gas in underground gas storage facilities, as well as in the transportation of oil by pipeline through the country.
Kyivstar mobile communications operator has connected 68 more settlements in Zaporizhia, Poltava, Ivano-Frankivsk and Luhansk regions to the 4G communication network, the operator has reported.
In Zaporizhia region, the cities of Energodar and Dniprorudne were connected to the high-speed data network, in Poltava region – Hlobyne, in Ivano-Frankivsk – the city of Burshtyn, and in Luhansk – Popasna. In addition to these cities, 4G communications from Kyivstar began to work in dozens of surrounding villages.
As of the end of December, the operator’s high-speed mobile Internet with 4G technology is already available for more than 74% of the population of Ukraine.
To provide the population of Ukraine with access to new communication technologies, Kyivstar has installed more than 8,000 towers that support the 4G standard, and more than 8 million subscribers have already been able to use such communication services.
In November 2019, subscribers in the Kyivstar network used 45% more traffic data than for the entire 2016.
Kyivstar is the largest Ukrainian mobile operator. It provides communication and data transfer services based on a wide range of mobile and fixed line technologies, including 4G. As of the end of 2018, its services were used by about 26.4 million mobile subscribers and about 0.9 million fixed line Internet customers.
VEON Group fully owns Kyivstar. The groups’ shares are NASDAQ-listed.
Ukraine has retained the zero quotas for exports of unprocessed gold and silver (apart from banking metals) and scrap precious metals and extended the licensing of exports of anthracite for 2020.
The Cabinet of Ministers approved resolution No. 1109 on December 24 and posted it on its website on December 27.
In addition, according to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, in 2020, exports and imports of the respective substances and goods will be licensed as previously.
