Polish President Andrzej Duda said that blocking the border with Ukraine is not a decision of the Polish authorities, but of farmers, in turn the government is trying to solve the problem.
“Blocking the border is not a decision of the Polish authorities, it is just a decision made by farmers and farmers’ organizations,” Duda said on the air of the national telethon.
The Polish president hopes that the issue with farmers can be resolved through negotiations.
At the same time, Duda noted that after the Polish authorities opened grain corridors for the transit of Ukrainian grain, the amount of agricultural products transported through Poland from Ukraine increased 300 times.
The interview was recorded before February 20, when Polish striking farmers near the Medika-Szehyni checkpoint opened a cargo container with agricultural products and dumped them on the ground.
Japanese partners have confirmed their interest in projects to support Ukraine’s agricultural sector and train veterans, and the respective teams of the two countries are working together to find ways to implement these intentions, said Vitaliy Koval, chairman of the State Property Fund, following the visit of a Ukrainian delegation led by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal to the Conference on Economic Development and Reconstruction in Tokyo.
According to a release from the Fund, its head spoke about the key areas of the agency’s work, investment proposals for Japanese business, and new projects of the SPFU team – work with sanctioned property and the Land Bank, which is scheduled to be launched at the end of this year.
Regarding the latter project, the head of the Fund had a separate meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan, as the SPFU manages 386 thousand hectares of agricultural land, which should work for the Ukrainian economy and bring profit to the state budget.
According to Koval, the meeting discussed attracting Japanese investors to the Ukrainian agricultural sector, in particular, the use of their equipment, as the need of Ukrainian farmers for mechanized machinery with a capacity of up to 200 hp is very high, and the world leaders in the production of such equipment are concentrated in Japan.
“Ukragroleasing can become their partner here. The company is managed by the SPFU and can help with leasing equipment,” said the head of the Fund.
He also called on foreign partners to pay attention to one of the most important areas of work for the whole country – retraining and training of veterans, which is the management and maintenance of agricultural machinery.
Koval said that the State Property Fund has the capabilities to assist in training: it can be conducted at the SPFU’s training centers, and such facilities will become training centers for operators and service engineers for Japanese agricultural machinery.
As reported, during the visit, the Ukrainian delegation signed 56 documents related to cooperation in many sectors of the economy of the two countries.
Sales in the secondary housing market in the United States in January increased by 3.1% compared to the previous month and amounted to a five-month high of 4 million homes at an annualized rate, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
According to the revised data, sales totaled 3.88 million homes in December 2023.
Analysts on average expected the figure to rise to 3.97 million homes from the previously announced December level of 3.78 million, Trading Economics reports.
Resales of housing in the United States in January were 1.7% lower than a year earlier.
The median house price increased for the seventh consecutive month – by 5.1% in annual terms – and reached $379.1 thousand, updating the historical high for January.
The number of homes offered for sale at the end of last month amounted to 1.01 million, which is 3.1% higher than a year earlier and 2% higher than in December. At the current rate of sales, it would take 3 months to sell the homes for sale, compared to 3.1 months in December. It is believed that a six-month lead time indicates a balanced market, and less than five months indicates a tense situation.
Houses were sold in January in an average of 36 days, compared to 29 days in December and 33 days in January last year.
The secondary market accounts for about 90% of contracts for the purchase of housing in the United States, and they are taken into account in the statistics only after the transaction is completed.
Ukrainian development company Alterra Group has insured in IC INGO (Kiev) the construction of a new logistics center PORT2 in Lviv region, according to the insurer’s press release.
It is also noted that Alterra Group has partially insured the first part of the logistics center PORT (PORT1), including the economic building and communications PORT1. In addition, the construction of the second part of PORT(PORT2) was fully insured against military risks. All buildings, including finishing, communications and glass, as well as construction and installation works and materials (including construction materials) or elements of the building that have not been put into operation are insured.
The sum of insurance coverage amounts to UAH 20 mln.
According to the insurance contract, IC INGO undertakes to indemnify the cost of restoration of insured objects in case of their damage or destruction as a result of military actions, including hit by missiles or their debris, drones, other types of armed aggression or defense actions.
Additionally, in case of an insured event, INGO compensates for the costs of clearing the territory of the insured object, firefighting costs, other measures that will help prevent or reduce the amount of damage, as well as payment for the services of engaged specialists and overtime expenses.
According to Dmitry Kovalchuk, founder of Alterra Group, such an insurance contract will facilitate cooperation with potential clients and investors, especially during construction.
“This is an important first step for business, as it demonstrates the private sector’s ability to adapt to challenges and stay ahead of government protection mechanisms that are sorely lacking,” says Dmitry Kovalchuk.
Director for Corporate Business of INGO Insurance Company Andriy Semchenko, in his turn, noted that insurers should cover war risks of Ukrainian business for the sake of promoting the Ukrainian economy. Even despite the fact that now the Ukrainian insurance market is left without the support of Western reinsurers for military risks.
“Yes, it is difficult for domestic insurance companies to provide substantial coverage limits, but we simply have no other choice – entrepreneurs should receive guarantees of protection and continue to work in Ukraine, rather than taking business abroad,” said Andriy Semchenko.
JSC “Insurance company “INGO” provides insurance services for 30 years. Since 2017, the main shareholder is the Ukrainian business group DCH.
“INGO” is a full member of the Motor (Transport) Insurance Bureau of Ukraine (MTSBU), a member of the American Chamber of Commerce (ACC), the European Business Association (EBA), the National Association of Insurers of Ukraine (NASU) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
Swiss insurance company Chubb Ltd. with the bulk of its operations in the United States plans to increase its quarterly dividend by 5.8% to $0.91 per share.
According to the company’s press release, the board of directors recommended that shareholders at the annual meeting approve this amount of dividends for the current year.
Payments for the fourth quarter of $0.86 per share will be made on April 5. The share register is scheduled to close on March 15.
The dividend yield on Chubb’s securities after the increase in payments will be about 1.4% based on the quotes at the close of trading on Wednesday ($251.96).
The price of the insurer’s securities during the previous session on Thursday fell by 0.7%. Over the past three months, the company’s capitalization has increased by 11.2% (to $102.2 billion), while the S&P 500 stock index has added 9.3% over the same period.
Net immigration of people from Ukraine to Germany in 2023 amounted to 121 thousand people, which is almost eight times less compared to the 2022 figure of 960 thousand, but still more than an order of magnitude higher than the pre-war figures: in 2019-2021, net immigration amounted to 5-7 thousand people per year, Germany’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Thursday.
Based on a special assessment of the preliminary results of migration statistics, it specified that in 2023, about 277 thousand immigrants from Ukraine and 156 thousand departures to Ukraine were recorded, while in 2022, about 1.1 million people arrived from Ukraine and 138 thousand returned.
Last year, the lowest net immigration was recorded in April-May – 3-3.5 thousand monthly due to the increase in departures to 15.7-16.1 thousand, the highest – in January-February, 18-18.9 thousand.
In September and October 2023, net immigration after the spring-summer downturn rose to 10.7 thousand and 14.1 thousand, respectively, due to a decrease in the number of those returning to Ukraine, but in November and December it fell to 10.6 thousand and 7.3 thousand, respectively, due to a decrease in arrivals to 20.9 thousand and 17.3 thousand, respectively.
Destatis noted that the age and gender distribution of immigrants from Ukraine in 2023 changed compared to 2022: the share of women and girls among entrants decreased to 53% from 63% a year earlier, immigrants under 18 years of age decreased to 28% from 35%, while the share of immigrants between 18 and 60 years of age increased to 61% from 54%. The share of immigrants from Ukraine aged 60 and over was 11% in both 2022 and 2023.
Thus, according to the statistical office, 61% of immigrants from Ukraine from 2022 are women, 34% are minors. It is specified that, according to the preliminary results of the microcensus, about 40% of those who immigrated by the middle of 2023 were single parents and their children.
“The high level of immigration from Ukraine has led to the fact that the population with Ukrainian citizenship in Germany increased from 138 thousand people in January 2022 to 1.15 million people in October 2023. The share of Ukrainians in the total population increased from 0.2% to 1.4% over the same period,” Destatis pointed out.
According to his data, in October 2023, citizens of Ukraine were the second largest group of foreign population in Germany after citizens of Turkey (1.6%, or 1.39 million people).
It is noted that the highest share of the Ukrainian population – in Hamburg and Berlin: since January 2022, it has increased respectively from 0.21% to 1.67% and from 0.37% to 1.61%.
In October 2023, most Ukrainians lived in the most populous federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia (234 thousand), Bavaria (168 thousand), Baden-Württemberg (159 thousand) and Lower Saxony (114 thousand). However, if we look at the share of Ukrainians in the total population of the respective federal states, a different picture emerges: in addition to Hamburg and Berlin, the largest share of Ukrainians was also in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (1.54%), Saarland (1.52%), Thuringia and Bremen (1.51% each). Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein and Brandenburg (1.2% each) were the least populous, followed by Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia (1.3% each).
According to Eurostat data, Germany has granted temporary protection status to 1 million 251.25 thousand Ukrainian refugees at the beginning of 2024 and has been leading Europe in this indicator for many months. A year earlier, there were 936.38 thousand of them, and at that time the first place was occupied by Poland, where 956.76 thousand people had such a status.
