Business news from Ukraine

KYIV. Feb 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – A bill to support fishing industry could be drawn up by the State Fish Agency jointly with the Reforms Delivery Office by the end of March 2017.

The agency said that the bill will envisage the creation of the fishing industry fund that would accumulate funds from the fishing industry and distribute them using transparent rules.

“The fund is to ensure the use of the funds received in the sector for targeted development: fish planting, soil reclamation and bio resources protection programs. Support of fishing farmers should be a separate direction,” State Fish Agency Head Yarema Kovaliv said.

He said that reports of the fund should be updated regularly and published online.

The agency said that in 2016 only UAH 3.8 million fines were imposed for violation of fishing rules. Funds from compensation for industrial fish catch and dredging works were also received.

“According to Ukrainian law, the collected funds are sent to the budget and often they are sent to the programs not linked to fishing industry. The sector does not have money for fish planting and soil reclamation programs. We propose a model that would effectively distribute the funds for the needs of the sector and support stable fish stocks,” Kovaliv said.

Reforms Delivery Office expert Yehor Luchinkin said that practice of specialized funds when the money are sent to fishing industry development programs is popular in Europe. There is the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) with a total budget of EUR 8.6 billion. The funds are distributed to local programs of EU member countries and EU countries also have local funds.

KYIV. Feb 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has set up a company in Ukraine to manage its own wagons, Bank Senior Adviser Anton Usov has told Interfax-Ukraine.
“This is a specially created company CREA I UA LLC. It will carry out management. The bank will consider various options for the further development of events: sale of cars to a strategist, for example,” he said.
Earlier EBRD Senior Banker Mark Magaletsky said in an interview with the Center of Transport Strategies that Interleasinginvest had not fulfilled its obligations on the EBRD loan service for financing the purchase of wagons and as a result the EBRD left the project with the assets that were pledged – freight wagons.
“Currently we already reach the finish line and have received the title of ownership of these cars. A subsidiary has been established, which is the holder of the wagons, and the cars will work directly on us. Some 2,387 cars – with this park we actually entered the top five largest private owners of wagons in Ukraine,” Magaletsky said.

DNIPRO. Feb 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine’s biggest industrial park Pavlohrad has opened in Dnipropetrovsk region, the press service of the regional state administration has said.

“An investment center is running in the region. Here each investor is provided with a personal adviser, who accompanies his project from idea to realization. Now we are opening Pavlohrad industrial park. This is a convenient platform for the creation of new production and an advantageous offer for investment,” Head of Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration Valentyn Reznichenko said.

According to him, this park is located on 250 hectares of land and is designed to create new industries and investments. The industrial park will allow creating about 5,000 new jobs, attracting more than $370 million in the development of industry in the region and getting additional revenues to the budgets of all levels.

Pavlohrad industrial park is located in Pavlohrad district of Dnipropetrovsk region. Nearby is the international highway, Dnipro has a river port and an airport. Some 440,000 companies and organizations, which account for almost 50% of the profits of all enterprises in the country, are located within a radius of 300 km from the park.

KYIV. Feb 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Vega Telecommunications Group in 2016 increased EBITDA to UAH 144.7 million, which is 49% more than the result in 2015.

According to a company press release, its consolidated income remained at the level of 2015 and amounted to UAH 614.1 million.

At the same time, operating income in 2016, compared with the previous year, more than tripled and amounted to UAH 43.5 million.

“In 2016 Vega increased capital investment by 42% in comparison with 2015, the amount of which reached UAH 107.5 million,” the report says.

The company specified these funds were spent on technical modernization and the development of its own network. In particular, during the year the first phase of construction of its own backbone DWDM network was completed and 70 new Internet zones using FTTx and GEPON technologies were created.

Vega Telecommunications Group offers comprehensive solutions in the field of fixed telephony, broadband access to the Internet and data transmission. It is part of the telecommunications business of SCM Group. Today Vega is present in 159 cities and settlements of 22 regions of Ukraine.

KYIV. Feb 13 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Astarta agroindustrial holding will invest $3 million in the feed center in Poltava region, the company has said in a press release.

The feed center will be launched in spring 2017.

The company said that the project of the centralized provision and distribution of the high-quality feed is implemented in the production subsidiary named after Dovzhenko (Shyshaky, Poltava region) at the dairy complex that keeps about 50% of the total dairy headcount of the group. The capacities of the feed center are expected to service over 10,000 heads of cattle.

“At the moment, the construction of the administrative pavilion, silage trashes and warehouses is taking place, the fodder mixing equipment is already installed,” the company said.

Astarta said that effective, highly-automated system of feed centers will stimulate the improvement of the ration of the cows and thus will improve the headcount’s health and yields by 20-30%.

The company is developing actively the model of cooperation for the milk production in Poltava region.

Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding, uniting six regional divisions in Poltava, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytsky, Ternopil, Zhytomyr, and Kharkiv regions. They include nine sugar factories, agricultural farms with a land bank of about 250,000 hectares and dairy farms. The holding also has a soybeans processing plant in Poltava region (Globyno processing plant).