KYIV. May 18 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada has ratified the agreement on economic cooperation signed by the Ukrainian and Croatian governments in Kyiv on March 27, 2013.
A total of 231 lawmakers backed the bill on ratification of the agreement on economic cooperation signed by the Ukrainian and Croatian governments (No. 0138) on Wednesday.
The agreement is intended to help developing partnership mutually beneficial relations between Ukraine and Croatia in the economic sphere, in particular, ship building, engineering, energy and electrical engineering industries, infrastructure, agriculture and food industry.
The document envisages the creation of a joint commission for economic cooperation that would discuss development of bilateral economic relations, determine new opportunities for the further development of future economic cooperation and draw up proposals to improve the conditions for economic cooperation between the companies of the two states.
Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister, Trade Representative of Ukraine Natalia Mykolska said that in 2016 Ukrainian exports to Croatia totaled over $40 million. It almost doubled compared to 2015.
KYIV. May 18 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The website about tourism in Ukraine Zruchno.Travel, uniting the database with over 49,000 tourist attraction places in the country, was launched on May 17.
During nine months the Association of Hospitality Industry of Ukraine (AHIU), E-Ukraine Association, specialists in the tourism sphere, software designers, journalists, bloggers and social scientists designed and filled in the portal.
AHIU Board Chairman Oleksandr Liyev said at a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday that Zruchno.Travel seeks to unite information about all existing tourist attraction places in the country. Today its database is the largest in Ukraine.
The portal has the following services: offers how to organize leisure activities during a weekend, information about events, offers of tours, tourist attraction places, catering and accommodations services in different regions of Ukraine. The portal would post news related to travelling and tourism in Ukraine.
Liyev said that representatives of power in each region can fill in pages aiming at popularizing and promoting tourism in their regions.
He said that some UAH 3 million was spent to launch the portal.
The co-founder of E-Ukraine Association and Zruchno.Travel Project Manager Yehor Stefanovych said that machine learning and big data solutions used by the portal would help to centralize the tourism sector in Ukraine, understand the main trends and existing tourist flows and forecast demand of Ukrainian tourists.
KYIV. May 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has called on Israel to ease Ukrainian farm produce access to its market.
This issue was on the agenda of Groysman’s meeting with Israel’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Uri Ariel during his official visit to Israel, the Ukrainian Cabinet’s press service reported.
“Volodymyr Groysman urged Israel to further consider the possibility of liberalizing access of Ukrainian agricultural products to the Israeli market as part of talks on a free trade area agreement whose signing is planned before the end of this year,” the press service said.
The agricultural sector is an important element of trade between Ukraine and Israel, and therefore lowering trade barriers and increasing quotas for Ukrainian farm produce are important and necessary, and special attention should be given to resumption of Ukrainian eggs exports onto the Israeli market, it said.
Groysman says Ukraine expects an increase in Israeli investment and seeks new technologies for its agricultural production.
“Ukraine is an agrarian country with great potential, Israel has information solutions for efficiency of agricultural production – these are precisely the opportunities we could use to be useful to each other,” the prime minister said.
Minister Ariel assured that Israel is interested in strengthening ties with Ukraine in producing farm produce, namely meat and eggs, as well as in setting up large-scale dairy production in Ukraine.
He also invited the Ukrainian agriculture minister and businessmen to visit Israel in the near future.
KYIV. May 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – China’s Sany Heavy Industry is interested in taking part in the modernization of Ukrainian coal enterprises, Ukraine’s Energy and Coal Industry Ministry has reported.
“During a visit to China representatives of the ministry held talks with Sany and made an arrangement to cooperate in the modernization of the coal sector,” the ministry said.
As reported, referring to the ministry, China’s CNNC is ready to participate in construction of nuclear fuel production facilities in Ukraine.
KYIV. May 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Biofarm (Kharkiv region) has opened a veterinary drug and feed supplement plant, investing around UAH 100 million in it during three years.
According to a company press release, the new plant in Kharkiv region would allow increasing the quality of products and expand markets.
The company seeks to quadruple production, exports of veterinary dugs and feed supplements, as new markets have been opened, including the European Union, Turkey, African countries, the United Arab Emirates and other countries.
Biofarm was founded in 1995 as the enterprise designing and producing pharmaceutical medicines.
KYIV. May 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – At least UAH 2 billion is required in 2018 to support production and promotion of Ukrainian movies and series, Deputy Minister of Culture of Ukraine Yuriy Rybachuk has said.
“The implementation of the law on support of cinematography would require large expenses of the budget. According to our estimates, at least UAH 2 billion should be foreseen for these purposes in 2018,” Rybachuk said at a meeting in Kyiv on Tuesday.
He said that the new law foresees support of not only movie production by the state, but also production of series and their promotion.
Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Rozenko said that the law envisages the attraction of not only funds from the national budget as sources of financing, but also funds of the Ukrainian Cultural Fund, grants and donors’ aid.
