KYIV. Oct 24 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Acting Director of national energy company Ukrenergo Vsevolod Kovalchuk has said that the state-run enterprise requires corporate management reforms.
“I encourage in every way and urge everyone to accelerate the implementation of the so-called law on corporate management of state-run enterprises. Corporatization is a more complicated process. We must be corporatized, but this will happen later when the law on the electricity market takes effect and when bylaws are passed,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
He said that in the future the supervisory board should be created with independent directors. They will determine the long-term policy of the company.
“One can permit that one director of the state-run company and one minister who manages him settle all issues themselves. Especially taking into account the fact how often these heads are replaced. Culture, development of the enterprise must be seen. A body that is elected for a long period of time, supervisory board, independent directors must exist. I would like to see an independent supervisory board with representatives of our largest creditors as its members. 70% of our investment is made using funds of international financial institutions,” Kovalchuk said.
“Other oversight agencies, independent qualified energy workers and managers should be present. They would form the management policy on the basis of transparent and clear principles,” he said.
Kovalchuk reminded that Ukrenergo attracted Baker&McKenzie to design new regulations, the regulations on the supervisory board and other documents to accelerate these processes.
“Ukraine took a liability to the EBRD [European Bank for Reconstruction and Development] eight years ago. We are waiting for next steps in this directions from the Energy [and Coal Industry] Ministry, Economic [Development and Trade] Ministry and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine,” he said.
KYIV. Oct 24 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine should launch a training program for civil servants to improve interaction between the state and small and medium-sized businesses, Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Ukraine Sevki Acuner said at a business forum in Kyiv on Friday.
It would be a good idea if the government and executive authorities created a training program for civil servants, so that they should better understand the importance of entrepreneurship for economic prosperity of the country, he said.
KYIV. Oct 24 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian businessmen have received UAH 1.5 billion of financing to start or develop their own business in the first six months of operation of the KUB portal (credits to Ukrainian business). This helped create 71,000 new jobs, PrivatBank Board Chairman Oleksandr Dubilet has said.
“There is money on the P2P platform. Yes, the rate is high. Depositors want to have the rate of 23-24%. Local authorities today could compensate the rate and make it affordable – 8-9%. It would be beneficial. It would be returned to the local budget… soon via taxes and salaries,” the banker said at a press release at the Ukraine is a Country of Entrepreneurs forum in Kyiv last week.
He said that the program to finance small and medium-sized business via KUB with financing of UAH 20 billion in 2016-2018 could help to create around 1 million jobs.
As reported, PrivatBank acted as the operator of the Р2Р crediting platform in partnership with MasterCard.
The P2P platform allows creditors to receive a chance of issuing credits to borrowers without intermediaries, having bigger rates compared to deposit rates, borrowers to have access to cheap credits and banks to connect to the platform and credit borrowers without spending on the search of clients, assess risks and other things.
PrivatBank was founded in 1992. Its largest shareholders were Hennadiy Boholiubov and Ihor Kolomoisky as of January 1, 2016.
The bank ranked first among the 108 operating banks in the country as of July 1, 2016, in terms of total assets worth UAH 268.85 billion, according to the National Bank of Ukraine.
KYIV. Oct 24 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has welcomed the establishment of a committee by the Ukrainian World Congress to support the economic development of Ukraine.
“The Ukrainian World Congress supports the government on the path of reforms and set up a committee to support economic development. I welcome this initiative and am ready for close and quality cooperation,” Groysman wrote on his Facebook page.
“The support of our powerful 20-millon diaspora could be very useful for us,” the premier said.
As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Ukrainian World Congress on September 27, 2016 signed a memorandum of cooperation. According to Groysman, cooperation can take place both in economic and cultural spheres.
KYIV. Oct 24 (Interfax-Ukraine) – National energy company Ukrenergo since October 2015 as of today has saved UAH 5.3 billion during procurement, acting Director of Ukrenergo Vsevolod Kovalchuk said on Espreso TV.
“We have saved UAH 5.3 billion on procurement during a year of my work,” he said, adding that over UAH 3 billion was saved at tenders held at the end of September 2016.
The top manager said that the key reason of saving funds is competition between bidders at tenders announced by the company.
“We save not only because the prices were set too high. We save because we attract dozens of executors of these tenders to the process. The only mechanism is competition. We recorded clear statistics: when there are two bidders in the tender – 3% is saved. They made an arrangement. When we bring 20 companies from all over the world with geography of 15 countries, they do not make arrangements between each other,” Kovalchuk said.
As reported, late March 2016 Ukrenergo signed a contract with ZTR to supply 22 autotransformers and shunt reactors worth UAH 828.591 million (VAT included). The price of transformer equipment turned out to be UAH 1.1 billion lower than expected due to competition between ZTR, ABB and Siemens at the auction.
On September 27, September 28 and September 30 the company opened tender bids to reconstruct six high-voltage substations using funds of the World Bank. The company saved around UAH 3.3 billion ($125 million) or 47% of the sum estimated to reconstruct these substations in 2014.
Bids were filed by companies in Italy, Croatia, China, Germany, Slovenia, Sweden, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Ukraine.
Kovalchuk said that in 2014 reconstruction of the substations was assessed at $267 million, while after the tenders it would be carried out for $142 million. The 330 kV substations Zhytomyrska, Cherkaska, Novokyivska, Nyvky, Sumy and Kremenchuk will be reconstructed.
