The tariff quotas of the European Union for Ukrainian honey, grape and apple juice for 2018 have been exhausted, First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Maksym Martyniuk wrote. According to his data, the main quota for duty-free supply of honey from Ukraine to the EU is about 8,000 tonnes, for grape and apple juice some 14,000 tonnes.
There are about 400,000 beekeepers in Ukraine, who produce about 70,000 tonnes of honey.
About 57,000 tonnes of honey is exported, mainly to the European Union.
“The production potential, based on the sowing of honey plants, is up to 140,000tonnes of honey per year, twice as much as the current volume,” he said.
He clarified that now there are no mandatory requirements for the quality of honey in Ukraine. At the same time, within the framework of the association agreement with the EU, Ukraine must implement European requirements for honey quality, which are fixed in Council Directive No. 2001/110/EU by the end of 2019.
IBM Corporation (the United States) has appointed Valeriy Shliakhov new director general of the company in Ukraine from January 1, 2018, according to the website of the company.
“I am pleased to be able to use all my experience and extensive knowledge of the Ukrainian IT services market at IBM. In the face of the constantly changing market conditions, the advanced analytics and technologies of IBM create excellent opportunities for digital transformation of customers’ businesses to offer competitive products and services to their clients,” Shliakhov said.
IBM said Shliakhov had held managerial (including business development and sales) posts in the well-known Ukrainian and international companies for more than 20 years. His responsibilities included Ukraine, the CIS countries and several countries in Central and Eastern Europe. He also had headed a Ukrainian IT services company he founded for over three years.
His predecessor Penko Dinev completed his seven-year tenure in office on December 31, 2017.
IBM is an American company headquartered in Armonk. It is one of the world’s largest manufacturers and suppliers of hardware and software, as well as IT services and consulting services.
Hungarian low cost airline WizzAir in 2017 transported more than 685,000 passengers to/from Kyiv and Lviv, which is 64% more than in 2016, according to a press release from the company. “The first international flight of WizzAir departed from Kyiv to London in 2008. Since then, the company remains faithful to Ukrainian passengers, offering more and more interesting opportunities to meet their demand. The airline contributed to the development of the local labor market in aviation and tourism, as well as creation of 515 jobs in related industries,” the report says.
The company said the second aircraft was delivered to the WizzAir base in Kyiv in August 2017, the third one will replenish the fleet of the airline in June 2018. Thanks to the resumption of flights from Kharkiv in 2018 and the launch of eight new flights throughout the year, the company will offer its passengers 29 low cost routes from Ukraine to ten countries. “This year the company will provide 1.1 million seats on its Ukrainian flights, which are already on sale. This figure contains a 60% increase over the previous year,” the press release said.
The Ukrainian Agribusiness Club association considers it necessary to include drones and equipment for elevators in the list of compensable agricultural machinery.
According to a press release of the association, Ukrainian agrarians in 2017 used a little more than UAH 134 million as part of the program to compensate the cost of equipment for UAH 550 million. Under this mechanism, agricultural enterprises purchased about 80 tractors, one harvester, more than 2,000 units of tillage and sowing equipment for the total amount of UAH 804.3 million.
“We propose to expand the list of equipment that falls under the compensation program. For example, add unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) for agriculture or equipment for elevator farming,” the coordinator of the association technical committee, Oleh Nesterov, said.
The volume of funds under the program of reimbursement for the cost of machinery and equipment in 2018 increased from UAH 550 million to UAH 945 million.
At the same time, according to Nesterov, the doubling of this amount looks illogical, even taking into account the fact that the machinery market in the past year doubled.
The position of the technical committee on the state support program is to amend the existing procedure for allocating funds.
The association proposes to expand the list of equipment and machinery covered by the compensation program.
Milk Alliance in the end of 2017 carried out the first deliveries of cheese to the United Arab Emirates and the United States of America, according to the group’s website.
“Processed cheese under the brands Shokoladny, Medovy and Yantar made at Bashtanka cheese factory were shipped under the Family Harvest trademark to the UAE in November 2017. And on the eve of the new year we exported Provvollone and Provvollone Smoked soft cheese. Negotiations on the supply of our products to the Arab countries had lasted about nine months. And we have already signed a long-term contract. In future we plan to expand the range of products for exports and look forward to continued and fruitful cooperation,” Milk Alliance Commercial Director Viktoria Predborska said.
Milk Alliance in 2017 also carried out two shipments of hard and processed cheese produced at Pyriatyn cheese factory to the United States. In particular, 11 names of cheese were exported.
As reported, in June Milk Alliance made the first delivery of dairy products to Georgia and Azerbaijan within the framework of a one-year contract, and at the end of 2016 the group of companies carried out the first supply of butter to Holland.
Milk Alliance was established in June 2006 as a holding company with a charter capital of UAH 23.5 million and a balance sheet, 99.9% of which consists of long-term financial investments.
Ukrainian vehicle manufacturers produced 8,586 vehicles in 2017, which was 63% more than in 2016; the output of passenger cars alone increased by 68.1%, to 7,296 units, the Ukrautoprom Association has reported.
According to the association’s rough estimates, the production of buses during the year grew by 2.5 times, to 804 units; however, the data does not include reports from AutoKrAZ, which has not provided such information since last August.
The output of commercial vehicles (excluding trucks KrAZ) totaled 486 units.
Eurocar remained the leader in terms of production, as it produced 6,145 Skoda passenger cars, which was 56.1% up on 2016.
It is followed by ZAZ with 1,674 vehicles (1,151 passenger cars, 479 commercial vehicles and 44 buses), whereas its output in 2016 included 526 vehicles, namely 403 passenger cars, 118 commercial vehicles and five buses.
NJSC Cherkasy Autobus (Cherkasy Bus) boosted production of buses by 93%, to 382 vehicles. It also manufactured seven commercial vehicles against five in 2016.
Chasiv Yar bus plant produced 90 buses last year (37 in 2016), Etalon Corporation’s Chernihiv automobile plant manufactured 178 buses (3), while Bogdan Corporation 110 (78).
Ukrautoprom reported that in December 2017 alone, Ukrainian vehicles manufacturers produced 932 vehicles, which was 37.5% up on December 2016, but 8.1% down on November 2017.
Passenger cars accounted for the lion’s share of the country’s total vehicle output in December 2017: 752 units, which was 16% down on November 2017, but 39.3% up on December 2016.
The output of buses last month was 117 units, which was 30% up on November 2017 and 42.7% up year-on-year.
In particular, Eurocar produced 586 passenger cars, 17.2% up on December 2016, but 20.3% down on November 2017. ZAZ produced 234 vehicles in December 2017 against 202 in November 2017 and 99 in December 2016, including 166 passenger cars, 60 commercial vehicles and eight buses (40 passenger cars, 46 commercial vehicles and three buses in December 2016).
Most buses were produced by Cherkasy Bus (58 units), followed by Chernihiv automobile plant (20 units), ZAZ and Chasiv Yar bus plant (eight each), Bogdan Corporation (23 units).
Also, 63 trucks were manufactured in December 2017 with PJSC ZAZ accounting for the lion’s share. It was 2.2 times up on November 2017 and 12.5% up on December 2016.
As reported, the production of passenger cars in Ukraine in 2016 decreased by 23.2% from 2015, to 4,340 units.
