KYIV. Sept 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has met with EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn, thanked him for the EU’s consistent sanctions policy towards Russia and briefed on the latest security situation in Donbas.
The meeting between Klimkin and Hahn took place on Tuesday, September 19, as part of the Ukrainian minister’s visit to New York City to take part in the general debate of the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s press service said on its website.
Klimkin informed Hahn in detail about the course of reforms in Ukraine and the measures the Ukrainian government is taking to ensure internal economic stabilization and development. The two officials also touched on prospects for strengthening economic and investment cooperation between Ukraine and the EU, the expansion of micro crediting opportunities for Ukrainian businesses, including due to the involvement of European and other international financial institutions.
During the meeting, special attention was paid to visa liberalization between Ukraine and the EU.
Klimkin also explained in detail the provisions of a new Ukrainian draft law on education to Hahn. The Ukrainian minister confirmed that Ukraine is ready to send the language-related article of the bill to the Council of Europe for examination.
KYIV. Sept 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine should focus on building a modern infrastructure of mobile communications networks and provide for investment in this sector, Head of the parliamentary committee for informatization and communications Oleksandr Danchenko has said.
“The challenges Ukraine faces now are first linked to building a large-scale infrastructure and mobile operators’ networks. 4G and 5G are very important. The role of the state and private business is important here,” he said at the Huawei CA&C Mobile Broadband Forum in Kyiv on Tuesday.
Danchenko said that the state should provide for the required investment climate and the required legislative conditions allowing business, first of all investors in mobile communications, to invest their money and be protected.
“Investors should understand that they would return their money, while Ukrainian users will receive a good service. As for the parliament, our task is to ensure the legislative base. We have worked on is with the sector. We have drawn up the new base. This is a bill on electronic communications and the new bill on radio frequency spectrum,” he said.
KYIV. Sept 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The government intends to conduct the common pecuniary appraisal of farmland in 2018.
This is outlined in the bill on the national budget of Ukraine for 2018 drawn up by the government.
According to the document, pecuniary appraisal of farmland across the country would allow assessing the land bank and provide for additional payments to local budgets thanks to the sale of rights to state-owned and municipal land parcels. According to the draft budget, in 2019-2018, some UAH 10.5 billion of land rental will be sent to local budgets.
The pecuniary appraisal of farmland will be conducted using budget funds.
KYIV. Sept 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Private joint-stock company Ukrnaftoburinnia, the co-owners of which are Ihor Kolomoisky and Vitaliy Khomutynnik, has increased its daily gas production rate to 1.35 million cubic meters (mcm) thanks to well No. 38 on the Sakhalynske oil and gas condensate field (Kharkiv region), the company’s press service has reported.
“On September 13, after developing well No. 38 of the Sakhalynske field daily production rate of this well was 400,000 mcm of gas. Average gas production rate for the entire company was 1.35 mcm, which is a record breaking figure for the company,” the press service said.
Well No. 38 of 5,344 meters deep was drilled in 175 days. The company intends to drill three or four more wells by the end of this year.
Ukrnaftoburinnia is a large private gas company in Ukraine. Since 2010, the company has been developing the Sakhalynske oil and gas condensate field. The company operates 22 gas condensate and oil wells. Under product sharing agreements the company operates additional 10 gas condensate wells.
KYIV. Sept 19 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The reconstruction of the military airfield in Uman (Cherkasy region) and its transformation into a civil airport could take four years with the investments of almost EUR 72 million.
Such data were announced at a press conference on pre-project proposals for the reconstruction of Uman’s military airfield and its transformation into a modern international airport held in Kyiv.
Pre-project proposals were made by order of VimesVC Ltd. (UK) by a working group consisting of experts and engineers – representatives of the aviation industry, construction, tourism and pilgrimage, law, economics, and ecology. Positive reviews from Ukraeroproject and the Institute for Environmental Security of the National Aviation University were received.
The reconstruction of the Uman airfield was considered in the aspect of the key element of the infrastructure “Conceptual proposals for the development of the city of Uman as a multicultural and tourist center.”
KYIV. Sept 19 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Westinghouse Electric Company has signed a contract with National Nuclear Generating Company Energoatom to deliver monitoring instrumentation systems for four reactors of Zaporizhia nuclear power plant (NPP), the company’s press service has reported.
“The project is part of the Complex Consolidated Safety Upgrade Program of nuclear power plants in Ukraine performed under loan agreements with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Euroatom,” the company said in a report.
Westinghouse said that Westinghouse will provide accident and post-accident monitoring systems and hydrogen concentration monitoring systems to reactors 3, 4, 5 and 6 of Zaporizhia NPP.
“The upgrade includes monitoring systems, along with severe and design basis accident field instrumentation, and additional miscellaneous equipment such as penetrations, cables, sensing lines, special tooling, accessories, spares, consumables, and special mounting and fixing provisions. Installation supervision, training and warranty for products and services are also included,” the company said.
Westinghouse will execute the project with selected Ukrainian expert companies including Westron, an I&C joint venture between Westinghouse and Hartron.
The project will start immediately, beginning with delivery of reactor 4 at the beginning of 2018 and ending with delivery of reactor 6 at the end of 2019. The final acceptance of the last delivered system is planned for the beginning of 2021.
Energoatom is the operator of all four Ukrainian-based operating nuclear power plants, which have 15 VVER reactors with an overall generating capacity of 13.835 gigawatts.
