Exports of agricultural products from Ukraine in January 2019 amounted to $1.7 billion, which is almost 22.5% more than in the same month in 2018, the press service of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food has reported.
According to the report, grain crops traditionally remain the leaders of Ukrainian agricultural exports with a share of 44.6% in the total structure of agricultural exports, the share of vegetable oils is 19.8%, oilseeds some 9.7%.
“The EU countries rank first among our sales markets, to which we exported $668 million worth of products in January. Asian countries lost to our European neighbors with a little more than $641 million. African countries rank third. Ukrainian agricultural exports there stood at $292.2 million,” Acting Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Olha Trofimtseva said.
According to her, the top five key countries importing Ukrainian agricultural products in January (by volume of exports in value terms) were Egypt with $153.6 million, the Netherlands with $149.9 million, India with $143.9 million, Spain with $135.8 million, and Turkey with $112.3 million.
Aurum Group, a diversified industrial and investment group, in the current year has already invested over UAH 16.1 million within the framework of the program for agricultural equipment modernization, a press release of the group reads.
“Developing the agricultural sector, we plan to use innovative agricultural technologies and this year we have invested more than UAH 16.1 million in modernization of agricultural equipment. Part of these funds is the group’s own resources, as well as bank financing,” founder of the group Olena Lebedeva said.
Today, Aurum Group’s agricultural enterprises cultivate more than 12,000 hectares of land.
“Since 2018, FUIB has been working with Aurum Group to finance building freight railcars based on Diesel Plant, and in 2019 they began cooperation with the agribusinesses of the group: the bank transferred agricultural equipment worth UAH 12.4 million to Aurum Trans under the terms of financial leasing,” head of the financing leasing department at FUIB Volodymyr Rudenko said.
Aurum Group was registered at the end of 2016. Its core business is engineering, rail freight transportation, industrial pump building, chemical industry, investment in real estate, and the agricultural sector. Today, the group exports its products to the CIS countries, the Middle East, the United States, and China.
Some 2,524 people fell ill with measles in the 9th week of 2019, they include 1,230 adults and 1,312 children, according to the Center for Public Health under the Health Ministry of Ukraine, the ministry’s press service said. A 25-day-old baby died from measles in Khmelnytsky region during the reporting week, it said.
In total, the ministry said, 10 people, including three children, have already died of this disease this year. Since the outbreak of measles, 31 people have died of this disease.
“Between December 28, 2018 and March 1, 2019, some 26,544 people fell ill with measles in Ukraine: 11,797 adults and 14,747 children. The highest outbreak rates were in Lviv (4,021 people in total: 1,335 adults and 2,686 children), Vinnytsia (2,339: 1,014 adults and 1,325 children), Rivne (2,299: 808 adults and 1,491 children), Khmelnytsky (2,007: 1,073 adults and 934 children) regions, and the city of Kyiv (2,310 people: 1,293 adults and 1,017 children),” the ministry said.
The delegation of UTG consulting company (Kyiv) intends to present a portfolio of projects of multifunctional complexes in Kyiv, Lviv, Vinnytsia and Dnipro for a total of about $400 million at the international real estate exhibition MIPIM 2019 to be held in Cannes (France) on March 12-15. “The company’s management, responsible for the investment direction of development, will present new Ukrainian projects at the exhibition, familiarize international experts with investment opportunities in the Ukrainian real estate market,” UTG’s press service told Interfax-Ukraine.
Among the projects that, in particular, will be presented at the Kyiv stand are the multifunctional complexes Alfa Mall, Alfa Residence, Alfa District (Dnipro), Europe residential complex, the IT cluster Hypercube (Vinnytsia), the first object of the network of urban hotels Urooms (Lviv).
In addition, a separate investment portfolio of Kyiv projects for one of the Western funds will be presented.
The volume of investments in the project portfolio is about $400 million.
UTG was established in 2001. It specializes in comprehensive support of development projects.
The State Agency of Automobile Roads of Ukraine (Ukravtodor) has started designing the reconstruction of highway M-06 on the Lviv-Rivne section, taking into account the expansion from two to four lanes, as well as the construction of detours of settlements, the agency has said. “After the completion of renovation, the saving of travel time from Lviv to Rivne without breaking traffic rules will almost halve to 1.5 hours,” Ukravtodor said.
The agency noted that a significant part of exported cargo is transported to the European Union member countries by this road, and therefore its reconstruction, in the opinion of Ukravtodor, will be an impetus for the economic development of the region, will help facilitate investment and create new jobs.
In addition, the new quality of the road will improve the level of road safety and the environmental situation in cities.
Ukrlandfarming, one of the largest Ukrainian agricultural holdings, in the framework of its vertical integration strategy retains the plan for the construction of a port for grain exports and seeks investors for this project, evaluating its value at $200 million to $800 million. “The project, which costs from $200 million to $800 million, is currently suspended, but we are actively looking for partners to join us and provide capital,” Oleh Bakhmatiuk, the owner of Ukrlandfarming, said in an interview with Die Welt.
In his opinion, the port should become the “pearl” of the company. “We hope that after the elections a window of opportunity will open and we will take a step towards investors in Europe, Asia, America, and the Middle East,” he added.
He said that after losing almost 50% of production capacity in Crimea and Donbas, Ukrlandfarming managed to significantly restore the lost production and reduce dependence on the domestic market, increasing the share of exports to 55%.
“Our strategy is to sell 70% for exports and 30% in the domestic markets, thereby reducing our dependence on sovereign risk,” the owner of the company said.
He clarified that currently Ukrlandfarming exports goods to about 40 countries and is considering access to the markets of Singapore and Indonesia.
