KHARKIV. June 21 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Kharkiv region and Heilongjiang Province of China have signed an agreement on trade, economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation in Harbin, the press service of Kharkiv Regional Administration has reported.
First Deputy Head of Kharkiv Regional Administration Yulia Svitlychna who signed the document on behalf of Kharkiv region on June 16 said that it will help to step up cooperation between the two regions.
“This document would give additional opportunities to expand cooperation in industry, agriculture, science and technology, education, healthcare, culture, arts and sports,” she said, speaking to the government of Heilongjiang Province.
“We have agreed to create favorable conditions for developing cooperation of business structures on a parity basis, including attraction, support and protection of investment and organization of new jobs,” she said.
She said that the agreement envisages the necessity of supporting cooperation between companies and representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and organizing and hosting exhibitions.
A delegation of Kharkiv region on June 16 took part in the sixth Harbin International Technical Conference.
Kharkiv presented studies of Kharkiv scientists in aerospace, IT, biomedicine and environmental safety.
KYIV. June 21 (Interfax-Ukraine) – An agreement on the free trade area between Ukraine and Canada will be signed on July 11 and July 12 in Kyiv during a visit of Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, Ukraine’s Economic Development and Trade Ministry has reported.
The ministry said that Trudeau said at the Ukraine-Canada Business Forum held in Toronto on June 20 that the signing of the free trade area agreement is of the highest priority.
First Deputy Prime Minister and Economic Development and Trade Minister Stepan Kubiv added that the agreement would open a new phase in trade relations between the two countries.
As reported, Ukraine and Canada signed an agreement on the completion of negotiations on the free trade area between the two countries in July 2015.
KYIV. June 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – U.S. the Debt Exchange, Inc. (Delaware) and First Financial Network, Inc. (Oklahoma-City) have registered their fully-owned subsidiaries in Ukraine – DebtX Ukraine LLC and First Financial Network Ukraine LLC (both based in Kyiv).
According to the public register, DebtX Ukraine with a charter capital of UAH 125,600 was registered at the end of May, and First Financial Network Ukraine with a charter capital of UAH 25,000 – early June.
Beneficiaries of DebtX are U.S. citizens Bruce Hounsell, J. Kingsley Greenland and Thomas Goodwin, while beneficiaries of FFN Ukraine are Bliss А. Morris and John A. Morris. They are all top managers of the companies.
Lawyer of Aequo law firm Oleksandr Tereschenko heads DebtX Ukraine and Senior Lawyer of Aequo law firm Bohdan Dmukhovsky heads FFN Ukraine. The two lawyers provided consultations to Ukrainian Business Group to acquire a transition bank from the Individuals Deposit Guarantee Fund and NCH Capital (the Untied States) in a debut purchase of an insolvent bank from the Deposit Guarantee Fund in Ukraine.
KYIV. June 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The ProZorro public procurement system is launching the contracting module to monitor the implementation of contracts.
Zakupki.Prom.ua, the official participant of the ProZorro system, told Interfax-Ukraine that the module would help to monitor procurement from the moment of the creation of a tender until the announcing of the winner, as well as subsequent developments: how the contract is implemented, whether suppliers deliver the required batch of goods, what the cost of the batch is, whether there were any supplementary agreements, changes in the contracts, the state fully paid for the contract or it was terminated.
“We have been working on ProZorro to remove corruption. The process of holding tenders was as transparent as possible. However, there was a creep hole: an unfair buyer could add everything that he failed to pass through the tender using supplementary agreements and other things,” Member of ProZorro supervisory board and Head of Zakupki.Prom.ua platform Mykola Zhandorov said.
He said that the contracts will be loaded to the new contracting module if the price is changed, and the procurement position or delivery terms are changed. These actions will be reflected in the electronic form.
The module will load documents used to make changes. Then the contracts would have two options: a report on its implementation will be published or it will be terminated. This is also recorded in the system. The obligatory digital signature is introduced for after-threshold procurement.
“The first version of the module has been launched. One can see all changes and download all files added by consumers. It will take much time to analyze this information. We are working on how to reveal suspicious contracts quickly,” Zhandorov said.
KYIV. July 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine’s Investment Attractiveness Index has reached 2.88 points and this is 0.31 points more than in the past six months, according to the investment attractiveness index study conducted by the European Business Association (EBA) in May.
A total of 92 top managers working in the EBA-member companies were polled.
According to the EBA’s materials, the index showed the largest indicator in the four years: the main factor improving it was stability of the national currency.
“Some 78% of top managers are not satisfied with the state of investment climate. There are three reasons: a zero pace of reforms, absence of systemic changes and corruption at all levels,” the EBA said in a press release.
Some 42% of respondents expect that investment climate would improve in coming six months.
A total of 91% of respondents did not notice signs of the judicial reform and they are not satisfied with fight against corruption, 79% of them do not see signs of stabilization of the financial system, 65% do not see changes in the land reform, 51% do not feel facilitation of customs procedures, while 50% are satisfied with the course of VAT refunding.
Some 30% of top managers believe that the new government team would not be able to introduce reforms.
KYIV. June 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada on June 15 rarified agreements on international intermodal transportation with the Hungarian government, on air traffic with the Cypriot and Greek governments and air transportation with the Polish government, the press service of the Infrastructure Ministry has reported.
“The agreements aim at creating a bilateral contract and legislative base for international air traffic between Ukraine and the mentioned countries,” Deputy Infrastructure Minister Dmytro Romensky said.
He said that the agreements would help to create a reliable international legal mechanism to implement and step up bilateral interstate relations, further develop cooperation in aviation transportation and establish effective relations and expand geography of flights of Ukrainian airlines.
