The volume of private money transfers to Ukraine in January-May 2018 increased by 30% compared to the corresponding period of 2017, to $4.5 billion, Head of the Council of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Bohdan Danylyshyn has said. “The volume of private money remittances to Ukraine grew to 8.4% of GDP in 2017 (according to the new NBU methodology). And it continues to grow rapidly this year (in January-May this figure was 30% higher than last year and reached $4. 5 billion),” he wrote on his Facebook page.
According to Danylyshyn, a new wave of labor migration from Ukraine is due to many factors, the most important of which are military aggression, a deep and long-term economic crisis, unemployment.
“The NBU inflation report for January 2018 said that the share of migrants in the population aged 15-70 is 8% … The scale of labor migration in Ukraine has become dangerously high for the future economic prosperity of the country,” he wrote. In his estimation, a strong external migration, including highly skilled workers, together with the population aging is a significant challenge for the state. “For example, the “brain drain,” in particular, means the loss of public resources invested in their education, the narrowing of industry, the deterioration of the business environment,” he said.
Ukraine as of August 8 had threshed 30.7 million tonnes of early grain and leguminous crops from 8.9 million hectares (91% of the forecast for these crops) with the yield being 34.3 centners per ha. According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, farmers harvested 22.8 million tonnes of winter wheat from 6.1 million hectares (95% of the forecast) with the yield of 37.4 centners/ha, 285,000 tonnes of spring wheat from 87,000 hectares (44%) with a yield of 32.9 centners/ha, 3 million tonnes of winter barley from 865,000 hectares (99%) with the yield being 35 centners per ha, 3.4 million tonnes of spring barley from 1.3 million hectares (82%) with a yield of 25.5 centners/ha, and 737,000 tonnes of peas from 406,000 hectares (94%) with a yield of 18.1 centners/ha.
The country also harvested 278,000 tonnes of rye from 107,000 hectares (72%) with a yield of 26.1 centners/ha and 151,000 tonnes of oats from 68,000 hectares (34%) with a yield of 22.3 centners/ha.
In addition, farmers threshed 2.5 million tonnes of winter rapeseeds from 965,000 hectares (99%) with a yield of 26.2 centners per ha and 45,000 tonnes of spring rapeseeds from 22,000 hectares (34%) with the yield standing at 20.6 centners/ha.
This autumn Ukraine seeks to start using first TE33A locomotives that would be produced for PJSC Ukrzaliznytsia under a cooperation agreement signed with U.S. General Electric (GE), Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has said. “This autumn, we are starting to get a new rolling stock – according to plans for joint production of General Electric. We lost a lot (of rolling stock) in the occupied territory. However, the company is involved, and things are moving,” the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers reported on Wednesday morning, citing Groysman.
The prime minister also drew attention to the fact that simultaneously with the renewal of assets, the state-owned company’s management is being renewed, shadow deals and manual control, which was observed in the past, is being eliminated.
“The billionaire company, Ukrzaliznytsia, was entangled in all sorts of schemes and knots. We begin to unwind, calculate enemies and bring the situation out of the state of decline,” Groysman said.
As reported, the framework agreement between Ukrzaliznytsia and GE envisages a 15-year partnership in updating and modernizing traction rolling stock, the first stage of which is the delivery to Ukrzaliznytsia under the terms of leasing of 30 new GE TE33AC diesel locomotives with a localization level of 10%.
Primary registration of electric cars (new and used) in Ukraine in January-July 2018 grew by 64% year-over-year, to 2,490 cars, the Ukrautoprom association has reported. The share of used cars exceeds 80% – in January-July it was 84%. The Nissan Leaf remained the most popular make in Ukraine: 1,621 cars of this model were registered in Ukraine from January to July 2018. The BMW i3 with 182 cars ranked second in terms of the number of registrations and Tesla Model S was third with 123 cars.
The top ten on the primary market of electric cars in January-July 2018 also included: Mercedes-Benz B Electric Drive – 78 cars; Smart Fortwo – 69 cars; Tesla Model Х – 57 cars; KIA Soul EV – 53 cars; Volkswagen е-Golf – 52 cars; Toyota RAV-4 EV – 46 cars; and FIAT 500е – 37 cars.
In 2017, the primary market of electric passenger cars in Ukraine grew 2.3-fold, to 2,697 units, and the share of used cars was 85%, while in 2016 – 51%.
Growth of sales under the Affordable Medicines program that reimburses the cost of medicines has suspended, and pharmaceutical manufacturers are waiting for the expansion of the list of diseases under the program, Marketing and Sales Director at PJSC Farmak Susana Khalilova has said. “As for the Affordable Medicines program, it seems that the further quantitative growth in sales of medicines has stopped. A fuss about it has fallen. A more or less clear number of patients has been formed,” she said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine. She said that “it was simply a “madhouse” at the beginning of the Affordable Medicines program – pharma companies could not guess the necessary number of medicines.”
“A year has passed and we understand approximately how many and what preparations are needed. Patients calmed down a bit and do not buy two or three packages to have them for the future. It took time to establish the process,” she said.
According to Khalilova, the Ministry of Health had to calculate the number of medicines required for participation in the program. “If the state at the very beginning have said how much money it would spend on a certain molecule or announced the approximate consumption of the concrete drug, it would have been much easier,” she said. In addition, Khalilova said that Farmak receives information on cases of a lack of budget funds for the Affordable Medicines program.
Farmak is a member of the Association Manufacturers of Medications of Ukraine (AMMU).
