The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) confirmed the forecast for 2018 inflation at 8.9% in April. “According to the estimates of the National Bank, the deviation of the actual inflation in April from the forecast is insignificant and can be leveled out in the following months. In addition, the monetary conditions are still tough enough to ensure a gradual decline in consumer inflation in accordance with the forecast of the National Bank (8.9% year-on-year at the end of 2018) and its return to the target range in mid-2019,” the NBU reported.
According to the State Statistics Service, in April consumer inflation continued slowing down for the third consecutive month and amounted to 13.1% year-on-year (compared to 13.2% in March). Inflation in monthly terms decreased from 1.1% in March to 0.8% in April.
“Although the National Bank expected inflation to decline year-on-year, its April figure slightly exceeded the forecast published in the Inflation Report for April 2018, mainly due to the influence of the most volatile components,” the National Bank said in a statement.
The National Bank at the end of October last year worsened the inflation forecast for 2018 from 6% to 7.3%, in January this year to 8.9%, while the Cabinet of Ministers from 7% to 9%.
The NBU, to curb price increases, from March 2 raised the refinancing rate to 17% from 16%.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will provide additional assistance in the amount of $125 million for Donbas and adjacent territories that felt the influence of Russian aggression.
“This additional technical assistance will be aimed at ensuring further stabilization and consolidation of Ukrainian communities in the region, increasing the resilience of the local economy and accelerating its development,” reads a report posted on USAID Ukraine’s page on Facebook.
It notes that the announcement on the provision of $125 million will be made during a joint press conference on Tuesday, May 15, by Assistant Administrator of the USAID’s Bureau for Europe and Eurasia Brock Bierman, U.S. Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. The press conference will be held in Sloviansk (Donetsk region).
As reported, Volker will arrive in Ukraine on Monday.
“I’m heading to eastern Ukraine next week to see more about the situation on the ground and to learn about the humanitarian crisis in the Donbas,” Volker wrote on Twitter.
TAS Insurance Company (Kyiv) will pay UAH 44.7 million in dividends for 2017.
This decision was made at a shareholders’ meeting on April 30.
Dividends will be paid within six months from the date of making the decision. Payment will be made in three tranches: UAH 15.789 million, UAH 15.789 million, and UAH 13.138 million.
As reported, the retained earnings of TAS for the past year amounted to UAH 47.01 million, of which UAH 2.353 million will be used to replenish reserves, and UAH 44.7 million to pay dividends.
As reported, the company in 2016 paid UAH 16.845 million in dividends, in 2015 some UAH 10 million.
The ultimate beneficiary of TAS Insurance Company is ex-Deputy Prime Minister Sergiy Tigipko, the founder of TAS Group, which includes TAS Insurance Company and TAS Insurance Group.
PrJSC TAS Insurance Company has been operating in the Ukrainian market since 2000. It specializes in life insurance.
The charter capital of the insurer is UAH 93.322 million.
Representatives of Ukraine and Slovenia have signed two memorandums: the memorandum of understanding to strengthen economic cooperation and the memorandum of understanding in technical cooperation in the sphere of geodesy.
An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that after Ukrainian-Slovakian negotiations chaired by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Slovenian President Borut Pahor on Friday in Kyiv representatives of the delegations of the two countries signed the memorandum of understanding between the Economic Development and Trade Ministry of Ukraine and the Economic Development and Technologies Ministry of Slovenia on deepening economic cooperation.
The sides also signed the memorandum of cooperation and scientific and technical cooperation between the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre and the similar service of Slovenia.
Ireland’s low cost airline Ryanair is holding talks with five Ukrainian airports on launching flights and hopes to start flying to new destination to Ukraine in 2019, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has said in an interview with the Ukrainian Tourism Newspaper. “Now we are negotiating with five more Ukrainian cities – maybe next summer we will open our flights there. I think we will develop in Ukraine very aggressively and rapidly increase the pace of our presence in the market,” he said.
At the same time, O’Leary expressed regret that the airline cannot yet launch all the destinations from Ukraine that it would like to launch, in connection with the existing restrictions in intergovernmental agreements.
He also said that Kyiv remains the key destination for the airline. When asked if negotiations with the airports of such cities as Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Kherson and Vinnytsia are being conducted, O’Leary said that the negotiations are being held “almost with all the mentioned cities.”
“I will be very glad if next summer we will be able to offer our passengers flights to such a beautiful city as Odesa, but it is too early to talk about the specifics. Our and Ukrainian negotiators still need to work hard for the successful implementation of this project,” the Ryanair CEO said.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved a strategy for developing small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) until 2020, which in particular, envisages the creation of the SME Promotion Office and a network of business support centers. The decision was made on May 10.
The draft action plan of the strategy, a copy of which has been sent to Interfax-Ukraine, includes the implementation of a pilot project on partial securing loans for SME and designing of proposals on the possible schemes of securing these loans.
In addition, the Strategy provides for simplification of the procedure for closing down an enterprise, improving the licensing and permitting system, as well as improving the access of SME to public procurement, according to the document. In particular, the draft plan provides that the state-owned enterprise ProZorro should, by the end of the year, introduce separate sections for the business entity category in the participant registration card in the electronic procurement system, depending on the number of employees and revenues from any type of activity for the year, according to the action plan.
The government also finally abolished the use of seals.
