Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived in Paris on a one-day official visit. In accordance with the program, upon arrival, the head of the Ukrainian state will visit the world’s largest startup campus Station F opened by French President Emmanuel Macron on June 29, 2017.
At about 15:30 local time Zelensky is to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron in the Elysee Palace. A joint press conference of the presidents is scheduled for 16:30.
Zelensky is also expected to visit the French Senate.
On Monday evening, the Ukrainian president will leave for Germany.
In addition to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Zelensky in Germany will also meet with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The total area of new residential and nonresidential buildings as of the start of their construction in January-March 2019 grew 1.9-fold year-over-year, to 2.7 million square meters. According to the report, the total area of apartment buildings in Q1 2019 was 2.662 million square meters (97% of the total volume), single-apartment buildings – 56,500 square meters and dormitories – 18,200 square meters.
The total area of new residential buildings at the beginning of construction in Kyiv grew 3.3-fold in Q1 2019, to 1.1 million square meters, while in Kyiv region the growth was small, to 220,000 square meters (212,000 square meters in 2018).
According to statistical data, the growth in the volume of new housing construction was also recorded in Lviv (3.2 times, to 377,900 square meters), Odesa (1.7 times, to 376,400 square meters), Kharkiv (1.6 times, to 231,300 square meters) and other regions.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman has initiated the creation of the Fund of the Future, a fund that will become the basis for financing social programs, while the source of these funds will be privatization, the deshadowing, demonopolization, and deoligarchization of the economy. “I want to create the State Fund of the Future, to which we will send funds from mines, privatization, and deshadowing. Funds from monopolies, oligarchs should be attracted there,” the head of government said on the air of ICTV Channel on Sunday evening.
Groysman noted that the money will be used to educate children, solve other problems. “Such funds were created in developed countries. And I would like such a fund to be established in Ukraine,” the premier added.
Primary registrations of electric cars in Ukraine in May 2019 grew by almost 50% year-over-year, to 610, while commercial electric vehicles – by 43%, to 33, the Ukrautoprom association has reported. As reported, in April of the current year, the registration of electric cars increased 67.2% to 495 units, commercial electric vehicles – 66.7%, to 40 units.
According to the report on the association’s website, the May market of commercial electric vehicles consisted only of imported used vehicles and was not very diverse. RENAULT Kangoo Z.E. were most popular vehicles, of which 31 units were registered, and the other two vehicles were NISSAN e-NV200.
At the same time, new cars were present in the registrations of passenger electric cars, but there were only 86 of them, while most of electric cars (524 units) were used passenger cars.
NISSAN Leaf remains the most popular electric car among Ukrainians, 329 units of which were registered in May, TESLA Model S is second, with 53 drivers who chose this model.
The May top five also included: BMW i3 – 46 units; FIAT 500e – 24 units; and RENAULT Zoe – 23 units.
In general, in January-May 2019, 2,381 electric cars and 176 commercial vehicles electric were delivered and registered in Ukraine, which is 64% and 209% more than in the same period last year, respectively.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky is convinced that Ukraine should be associated not only with agriculture, mines and metallurgy, beautiful people, nature and food, but also with the IT industry. “There has always been a vision for everyone in the world that Ukraine is, above all, agriculture, mines, metallurgists, and tourists have always said that Ukraine is very beautiful, food here is very tasty and people are very beautiful, especially women. Yes, that’s it and it remains our brand, but there are other figures that indicate that the IT industry, IT technologies and companies are developing very quickly in Ukraine,” he said during a visit to Station F, the world’s largest startup campus, in Paris.
According to Zelensky, more than 4% of Ukraine’s GDP is now formed through the IT industry. “We have about 150,000 IT specialists, startup initiators in Ukraine. I think that we will develop in this direction,” he said.
Zelensky noted that in Ukraine there is no such campus for startups yet, but they will work on it. “We have a lot of factories, which, unfortunately, do not work. We will definitely find such a large building,” he said.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service has opened a demining center in Mariupol, Donetsk region, the Interior Ministry said on Facebook on Saturday. The ceremony was attended by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. “Currently we are at war and we all want this war to be over. We understand that yours is a very serious role because after the end of the war, when we have definitely reclaimed our territories, you will have a very serious responsibility… The war of demining will continue,” Zelensky said at the ceremony.
Modern equipment and demining robots were purchased for the center, the president’s press service said.
“Currently, 7,000 square kilometers of the Donbas area controlled by Ukraine is set with landmines,” it said.
It was reported that on Saturday Zelensky was visiting Mariupol on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the city’s liberation.
