An important part of the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2024 (URC2024) in Berlin on June 11-12 this year will be a professional recovery forum aimed at achieving a concrete result in establishing contacts between Ukrainian, German and international stakeholders, German Development Minister Svenja Schulze said.
“This is not an idle conference, we would like to create a business development fund with systemic financial instruments to support, for example, small and medium-sized businesses or to support local reconstruction,” she said at a roundtable discussion on Ukraine’s reconstruction at the Munich Security Conference.
Schulze also noted the intention to create a center to provide municipalities with the information, funding and training services they need.
She said the role of municipalities will be one of the four main topics that will be the focus of URC2024, along with the role of the private sector and private investors, the EU accession process and the reforms needed for it, and the topic of human capital and social recovery.
“We need to mobilize the private sector. This is really important. Not enough public money? – We also need private money. We have local and regional requirements: municipalities and regions need to be part of this process and they need to help drive it forward,” explained the German Development Minister.
According to her, all these topics at the Recovery Conference will also be permeated by the common theme of digitalization, in which Ukraine has already achieved impressive results.
business development funds, GERMANY, municipalities assistance center
Maryansky Quarry LLC of businessman Igor Mazepa’s Concorde Capital group has been granted the right to buy out a special permit for the use of the Maryansky limestone quarry (Dnipropetrovs’k region) after the winning company lost this right by a decision of the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine.
According to the Nadra.info portal, Forsazh LLC was deprived of the right to obtain a special permit because it did not enter into a sale and purchase agreement following the tender, where it offered UAH 151.2 million. The relevant decision was enshrined in the order of the Head of the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of February 15.
Thus, the right to buy out the special permit was transferred to Maryansky Quarry LLC, which offered UAH 52.2 million at the tender.
According to the State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources, the reserves of the Maryansky deposit are about 132 million tons of limestone.
According to Opendatabot, the owners of Maryansky Quarry LLC are Kryvyi Rih Cement (90.1%) and Natalia Kurkova (9.9%), while the ultimate beneficiaries are Ihor Mazepa and Vitaliy Antonov.
Number of applicants per vacancy (comparison) as of 01.07.2023
Source: Open4Business.com.ua and experts.news
In January this year, Ukraine increased imports of coke and semi-coke in physical terms by 8.1 times compared to the same period last year – up to 42,885 thousand tons from 5,289 thousand tons.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service (SCS) on Friday, coke imports in monetary terms increased sevenfold to $16.620 million during this period.
In the first month of the year, the country did not export coke, as it did in January-2023.
Imports were carried out mainly from Poland (95.64% of supplies in monetary terms), the Czech Republic (2.77%) and Hungary (1.59%).
As reported, in 2023, Ukraine reduced imports of coke and semi-coke in physical terms by 8.5% compared to 2022 – to 328.697 thousand tons, while imports in monetary terms decreased by 25.8% to $129.472 million.
In 2023, Ukraine exported 3,383 thousand tons of coke, down 12.3% compared to 2022. In monetary terms, it decreased by 22.2% to $787 thousand.
Exports were carried out to Moldova (100% of supplies in monetary terms), while imports were mainly from Poland (88.47%), Colombia (7.72%) and the Czech Republic (3.15%).
In 2022, Ukraine decreased exports of coke and semi-coke in physical terms by 98% compared to the previous year to 3,856 thousand tons, and in monetary terms by 97.6% to $1,011 million. The main exports were made to Hungary (42.63% of supplies in monetary terms), Georgia (37.69%) and Turkey (17.41%).
In 2022, Ukraine imported 359.192 thousand tons of coke and semi-coke, which is 54.5% less than in 2021. In monetary terms, imports decreased by 50.3% to $174.499 million. Imports were carried out mainly from the Russian Federation (43.43% of supplies in monetary terms, before the war), Poland (30.07%) and the Czech Republic (13.15%).
As a result of the war, a number of mines and coke plants are located in the territories temporarily not controlled by Ukraine.
In January, Poninkivska Cardboard and Paper Mill-Ukraine (PCPM-Ukraine, Khmelnytsky region), a major Ukrainian corrugated cardboard producer, increased its corrugated packaging output by 20% compared to January 2023, to 6.85 million square meters.
According to Ukrpapir Association statistics provided to Interfax-Ukraine, the plant continues to be one of the top three producers of corrugated packaging after Kyiv Cardboard and Paper Mill and Trypillia Packaging Mill.
Last month, the plant also increased production of containerboard by 19.1% to 7.5 thousand tons, and produced 0.08 thousand tons of paper against 0.04 thousand tons a year earlier.
As reported with reference to the data collected by the association from the main enterprises of the industry (since the State Statistics Service stopped providing such data in 2019), in January 2024, the production of paper and cardboard in Ukraine decreased by 7.8% compared to January 2023 – to 53.9 thousand tons, while the production of cardboard boxes increased by 11.3%, to 43.4 million square meters.
In monetary terms, in January, PCBF-Ukraine produced products worth UAH 233.75 million, up 6%.
Poninkivska Paper Mill (formerly Poninkiv Cardboard and Paper Mill), once the largest producer of school notebooks, now has one main production line – paper and cardboard, producing mainly corrugated cardboard and corrugated packaging, as well as wrapping and waste paper.
The plant is part of the United Cardboard Company-Ukraine (UCC, Lutsk) owned by businessman Mykola Lobov, whose production assets include, among others, Lutsk KBF-Ukraine (Volyn region), which produced 5.4 thousand tons of various cardboard (up 7.5%) and 3.2 million square meters of corrugated boxes in January (according to Ukrpapir).
As reported, in 2023, PCBF-Ukraine produced almost UAH 2 billion 450 million worth of cardboard, up 3% year-on-year.
In 2023, Naftogaz Group increased production from workover wells by 20% compared to pre-war 2021, which was a record high for the last four years.
“This figure is 20% higher than production in pre-war 2021. I am sincerely grateful to the specialists of Ukrgazvydobuvannya and the entire team that made this result possible,” the group said on its website, citing Naftogaz CEO Oleksiy Chernyshev on Thursday.
Recently, Ukrgasvydobuvannya JSC (UGV), a part of the Naftogaz group, has overhauled and restored an old well, which now additionally produces more than 340 thousand cubic meters of gas per day.
This well had been awaiting abandonment for a long time, but in 2023, experts conducted a detailed analysis, reviewed technical and geological risks, and decided to restore the well through workovers.
“Our experts are constantly working on reviewing and analyzing old wells that can be brought back into operation due to better technical capabilities than decades ago,” commented Oleh Tolmachov, Acting CEO of Ukrgasvydobuvannya.
As reported, in 2022, Ukrgasvydobuvannya produced 12.5 bcm of natural gas (commercial), which is 3% less than in 2021. According to operational data, the company increased production by more than 0.7 bcm in 2023.
NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine owns 100% of Ukrgasvydobuvannya shares.
