The Economic Development and Trade Ministry of Ukraine plans to start privatization of large state-owned enterprises (SOE) from the sale of Centrenergo, First Deputy Minister Maksym Nefyodov has said. “Centrenergo could be the first test case, and other facilities would follow it,” he said at a roundtable entitled “Ukraine on the Way of Privatization” in Kyiv on Wednesday.
Acting Head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF) Vitaliy Trubarov said that after Centrenergo, it is likely that other power supply companies would be privatized. He also said that the start of the privatization of large companies is planned for this autumn.
CENTRENERGO, ECONOMY MINISTRY, ENERGY COMPANY, PRIVATIZATION
KSG Agro saw $2.2 million of net profit in January-March 2018, which was a 9.7-fold rise year-over-year. According to a company report on the website of the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE), revenue over the period grew by 33.6%, to $3.9 million.
The company saw a 1.6-fold rise in gross profit, to $1.7 million, and a 2.4-fold rise in operating profit, to $2.6 million.
Assets as of March 31, 2018 totaled almost $61.88 million.
Revenue in the crop planting segment grew 2.6-fold in Q1 2018 year-over-year, to $232,000, and in the processing segment – by 14.9%, to $1.32 million, while in the livestock breeding segment it fell by 10%, to $2.26 million.
KSG Аgro is a vertically integrated agricultural group, working in almost all the segments of the agricultural market, including the production, storage, processing, and sale of agricultural products.
Ukraine boosted natural gas consumption in January-April 2018 by 4%, or 600 million cubic meters (mcm) year-over-year, to 15.8 billion cubic meters (bcm). In particular, the industry consumed 5 bcm of gas (a 25% increase from January-April 2017), while households, municipal heat suppliers and budget organizations used 9.6 bcm (a 4% decrease), the Ukrainian Energy and Coal Ministry has said.
Some 1.2 bcm of gas was used for production and other needs (no change year-over-year). As was reported earlier, Ukraine in 2017 reduced natural gas consumption by 0.5%, or 161 mcm of gas from 2016, to 32.2 bcm.
The European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs has voted in favor of a new, fourth Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) for Ukraine, Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk has said. The MFA should also be considered by European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade, he said. “I hope for tomorrow’s support amid voting by the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade, where three weeks ago, [I] jointly with Commissioner of the European Commission Pierre Moscovici presented the importance of the next macro-financial assistance program for the Ukrainian economy and the continuation of the reform process,” Danyliuk wrote on Facebook on May 16.
As reported, under the third MFA, Ukraine received two tranches from the EU to the tune of EUR 1.2 billion out of the earmarked EUR 1.8 billion. The EC refused to grant a third tranche, as the country’s authorities had fulfilled only 17 of the 21 conditions.
In March 2018, the European Commission approved a fourth macro-financial assistance program for Ukraine worth EUR 1 billion, which is subject to approval by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.
The flow of agricultural goods between Ukraine and the European Union (EU) in January-March 2018 totaled $2.2 billion, according to a posting on the website of the Institute of Agrarian Economy research center. Deputy Director of the center Mykola Puhachev said that the surplus was $845 million. “In Q1 2018, both imports grew by 27%, to $669 million and exports by 15%, to $1.513 billion year-over-year,” he said.
The largest trade partners of Ukraine in the EU are Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Germany and France, with the total share of the agricultural goods flow of over 72%. According to the report, grain and oilseeds, as well as sunflower oil and meal provide for the main volumes of supplies from Ukraine to Europe.
Ukraine imports mainly grain, oilseeds, cacao beans and chocolate, various food, waste of processing industry, spirit and alcohol.
Puhachev said that in January-March 2018, Ukrainian exporters fully used duty free quotas for what, corn, honey, apple and grape juices, malt, the quarterly quota for poultry and the half-year quota for butter. For other food the average usage of quotas is rather low.
“In 2018, the quotas for some goods are growing as it was planned, in particular, sugar, starch, juices, barley cereal, wheat, corn, lamb meat and other products. In addition, preferential quotas for eight goods are in effect for Ukraine: honey, grape juice, barley cereal, preserved tomatoes, oats, wheat, corn and barley,” the expert said.
