KYIV. June 7 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry will toughen control over the issue and use of permits for international transportation by road.
“Tomorrow Yuriy Lavreniuk, Yehor Stefanovych and Mykhailo Noniak will start digitizing these documents for online exchange of data with the Ukrainian customs office and partner countries. The data documents trucks crossing Ukraine’s borders. The haulers or unfair persons who create the artificial shortage [of permits] would be severely punished,” Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan wrote on his Facebook page.
He added that the matter with Ukrainian haulers that recently faced inconveniences with crossing the Turkish border has been settled.
“Next week we will hold additional consultations with Turkey to avoid such cases,” he said.
The minister said that this problem is systemic.
“We have many permits for international transportation that are passed from one hands to another and become a source of corruption instead of working. There are frequent cases when Ukrainian haulers complain about the absence of the possibility to ship cargos to other states, while neighboring countries say Ukrainian haulers have a lot of unused permits,” the minister said.
KYIV. June 7 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine in January-May 2016 increased cast iron exports in kind by 22.4%, compared to the same period in 2015, to 842,529 tonnes.
According to customs statistics, made public by the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, exports of cast iron in monetary terms fell by 19.8% during this period, to $152.847 million.
Exports were mainly made to Turkey (32.84% of supply in terms of money), the United States (24.06%), and Italy (23.9%).
In January-May 2016 Ukraine imported 736 tonnes of cast iron worth $247,000, whereas in January-May 2015 it imported 2,683 tonnes of similar products for $903,000. Imports were mainly made from Russia (60.08% of deliveries in monetary terms), Germany (25.81%) and Italy (11.29%).
Ukraine in 2015 decreased cast iron exports in kind by 1.7%, to 2.172 million tonnes and by 36.4% in money terms, to $510.644 million.
Cast iron was mainly exported to Italy (30.63%), Turkey (25.11%) and the United States (19.9%).
Ukraine last year imported 3,431 tonnes of cast iron (53.6% down year-over-year). In money terms imports decreased by 60.6%, to $1.177 million.
Cast iron was mainly imported from Russia (88.03%) and Germany (9.59%).
KYIV. June 7 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Azerbaijan is interested in expanding cooperation with Ukraine in aircraft building. The country is working on the organization of assembly of new Ukrainian transport aircraft An-178 with a carrying capacity of up to 18 tonnes designed by Kyiv-based Antonov State Enterprise at own production facilities.
President of CJSC Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) Jahangir Askerov told reporters on Monday in Hostomel (Kyiv region) that his government is mulling the issue of organizing cooperation assembly of promising transport aircraft An-178 in Azerbaijan.
“On behalf of the government I am authorized to say that Azerbaijan is interested in assembling An-178 on the territory of Azerbaijan,” he said.
Askerov said that in May 2015 Antonov and Azerbaijan’s Silk Way Airlines signed a contract to assembly 10 transport aircraft An-178 in Ukraine and ship them to the airlines. The first two planes are to be delivered by late 2018 under the contract and the rest of eight planes will be shipped upon a mutual agreement of the parties.
“We hope that by the middle of 2018 when we receive the first plane, production facilities [for assembling An-178 in Azerbaijan] would be ready,” he added.
Antonov President Mykhailo Hvozdev said that the plans to expand cooperation under the An-178 program worked out with Azerbaijan do not foresee the sale of An-178 technologies to the foreign partner. This is cooperation production. The plane will be finally assembled in Azerbaijan, he said.
The An-178 is suggested as a replacement of medium four-engine turboprop transport aircraft An-12. The An-178 could also replace the C-160 European two-engine turboprop transport in some regions.
Around 200 companies from 15 countries are involved in production cooperation under the An-178 program.
An-178 aircraft was first exhibited at Le Bourget 2015 (Paris, France) and then at Dubai Air Show 2015 (the UAE). The plane participated in the flight program of ILA Berlin Air Show 2016 (Germany).
KYIV. June 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Electricity exports from Ukraine to Belarus will be handled by state-run Ukrainian enterprise Ukrinterenergo, the press service of the Ukrainian Energy and Coal Industry Ministry has said.
“One of the most important issues discussed at the meeting [between Ukraine’s Energy and Coal Industry Minister Ihor Nasalyk and Belarus’ First Deputy Energy Minister Shenets in Mink on June 6] is the resumption of power exports from Ukraine to Belarus, which were suspended in November 2014. The sides have determined that state-run Ukrinterenergo will handle the electricity exports,” the ministry said.
According to the ministry, a draft Cabinet resolution on boosting electricity exports is now undergoing agreement with the executive agencies, and after it is approved, they will determine timeframe and volumes of power exports to Belarus.
KYIV. June 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine’s state service for food safety and consumer protection reports about a letter from the Embassy of Ukraine in the South African Republic inviting shipments of Ukrainian pork.
“The regulator has received an official letter from Ukraine’s embassy in the South African Republic with an offer to import [Ukrainian] pork. That offer was a pleasant surprise. One should be aware that access to that market is not easy – there are many food-related regulations,” head of the service Volodymyr Lapa is quoted by an announcement on the service’s website as saying.
In his words, Ukraine will first have to fill in a detailed questionnaire, and then prove its effective control of African swine fever in its territory.
As was reported with reference to Ukrainian customs reports, in 2015, Ukraine almost tripled pork exports, to 27,170 tonnes, while pork imports plunged by 88.1%, to 3,690 tonnes.
Last year, Ukraine cut poultry exports by 7.7%, to 161,284 tonnes. Poultry imports grew by 0.4% from 2014, to 61,250 tonnes.
KYIV. June 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – A large Ukrainian brewery, Persha Pryvatna Brovarnia, despite the decline of the beer market, seeks to boost its production by 16% in 2016 and by 46% in money terms.
“In 2015 we grew by 11% in liters and 43% in money terms. According to Nielsen, our share of the market in April 2016 was 12.6% and 13.1% in liters and money terms respectively. In Kyiv we are ahead of Obolon, in Lviv we are second with 25% of the market,” the owner of the brewery Andriy Matsola said in an interview with Business publication.
Commenting on the sources of financing, Matsola said that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is amid its partners. The company is mulling long-term cooperation programs with the bank.
“Our business could be built only on cheap money. We will do this on the existing production facilities,” the businessman said.
He said that the decline of the Ukrainian beer market in 2016 would be 13-15%, while in 2014 it decreased by 21% and in 2015- by 23%.
Matsola said that breweries are guilty in the beer market fall as they offer many large containers at low prices and this affects beer consumption culture.
“When they sell 2.4 liter for UAH 21, consumers think that beer is a product needed only for getting drunk,” he said.
Persha Pryvatna Brovarnia LLC (First Private Brewery) was established in 2004. It operates two breweries – in Lviv and Radomyshl (Zhytomyr region) – with a total capacity of 2 million hectoliters of beer per year.
