KYIV. July 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has passed amendments to the legislation that introduced biometric passports for Ukrainian citizen.
Corresponding bill No. 3224 was repeatedly put to the vote and in the end it was supported by 226 lawmakers, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent said.
According to the document, passports will be issued to people aged 14 and older. In addition, there will be no stamp about the registration or annulment of a marriage in new passports.
The law stipulates that fingerprints will be taken for issuing foreign passports, diplomatic passport, service passports and other documents. At present, when foreign passports are issued fingerprints are taken only with the consent of a person. Under the new law, digitized fingerprints will be also included into internal passports only with the consent of a person.
According to the law, each citizen who reached the age of 14 must get a passport. Passports will be issued for four years to persons under 18 years of age, and for ten years for all the rest.
Passports will contain text in the Ukrainian and English languages. Passports of citizens of Ukraine will not have a mark about the registration of marriage or its annulment, but each spouse will be issued a marriage certificate.
KHARKIV. July 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Head of Kharkiv Regional Administration Ihor Rainin believes that the terms of resumption of operation of Kharkiv Tractor Plant depend on the course of investigation into criminal cases opened by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
“The problem solving depends on the criminal cases opened by SBU. First the plant was to be saved, as some production facilities were to have been taken to Russia… Now I am absolutely confident that the enterprise should operation lawfully and 2,000 employees should receive wages,” Rainin told reporters on Wednesday.
“I am really taking efforts to find a balance – between the effective operation of the enterprise and legal liability,” he said.
BAKU. July 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has stated Azerbaijan and Ukraine are interested in implementing the Odesa-Brody project for oil transportation.
“We have seriously discussed the Odesa-Brody project because Azerbaijan supplies large volumes of oil to the European market,” Aliyev said at a meeting with President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko in Baku.
Reviving this project would create good transport opportunities, connecting the Caspian Sea, Black Sea and Baltic Sea, Aliyev said.
“This triangle has the potential for cooperation, and I consider that without doubt the role of the transport corridor is the key one in our cooperation,” he said.
KYIV. July 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Cabinet of Ministers at a meeting on June 13 endorsed the concept of the Energy Efficiency Fund to be created.
“Setting up the Energy Efficiency Fund will allow making very simple things, first of all, improve the efficiency of energy consumption. We [in the country] have about 100,000 multi-apartment buildings, 7.5 million private households. We don’t need to do pilot projects but broad scale implementation, effectively, in every town, in every settlement. Today energy efficiency concerns the whole country,” Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities Services Hennadiy Zubko said.
Zubko said donors from the European Union and the German government are close to confirming their participation in co-financing the fund from next year.
According to the minister, the successful work of the fund will allow saving 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas annually, ensuring the creation of 75,000 new jobs with the involvement of small and medium-sized businesses in the thermal modernization market, conducting energy efficiency measures and energy audits in the residential sector, as well as will help annually save about UAH 5 billion of national budget funds intended for payment of subsidies for housing and utilities services.
KYIV. July 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – PJSC Zaporizhia Aluminum Plant (ZAlK) is conducting restoration work to resume manufacture of aluminum wire rod, according to the plan, in August this year.
According to a press release of Zaporizhia Regional State Administration, the launch of wire rod production was discussed during a working trip of Deputy Head of Zaporizhia Regional State Administration Borys Borysov and director of the industry and infrastructure development department Andriy Antonov, held on behalf of head of the state administration Kostiantyn Bryl.
The press service noted production of aluminum wire rod was stopped in 2014. Currently the plant management in conjunction with the regional administration has taken first steps towards the realization of a prospect plan for the development of the strategically important enterprise.
ZAlK CEO Dmytro Lobikov said the plant was the only Ukrainian producer of primary aluminum, alloys, as well as crystalline silicon, ferrosilicon and silumin. The plant provided a full metallurgical cycle.
KYIV. July 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Public joint-stock company Ukrtelecom seeks to invest up to $50 million in the fixed telecommunications network modernization by late 2016 using the credit line of China Development Bank.
The press service of Ukrtelecom reported on Wednesday the company has ordered 389 Huawei active junction boxes that would replace 46 old automatic telephone systems and will service around 170,000 subscribers.
The equipment will ensure provision of Internet access services to subscribers at the speed of up to 20 megabit per second using ADSL technology, up to 50 megabit per second using VDSL technology and up to 1 gigabit per second using GPON technology. The new infrastructure of Ukrtelecom would allow Smart City services in the future.
Similar Huawei boxes are servicing 12,500 subscribers in Odesa. They were installed instead of three old automatic telephone systems during a pilot modernization project.
Ukrtelecom is the largest fixed-line communications operator in Ukraine. Its ultimate owner is Rinat Akhmetov’s SCM Group.
