The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has organized a financing of EUR 25.9 million for Kness Group to build three solar power plants with a total installed capacity of 33.9 MW in Vinnytsia region, the press service of the bank has reported. The EBRD will provide EUR 18.5 million and Clean Technology Fund (CTF) will provide EUR 7.4 million. The technical assistance was provided under the EU4Business program.
Kness Group is a large Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor. It has Podilsky Energoconsulting engineering company. The group sells inverter equipment, generation monitoring systems and pillars for solar panels manufactured in Ukraine.
Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze says that Ukraine intends to study the opportunities for joining the Schengen zone in the long term.
“After the introduction of the visa-free regime with the EU, Ukraine intends to study the opportunities for accession to the Schengen area in the long term,” Klympush-Tsintsadze said at the opening of the fifth annual Eastern Partnership conference in Tallinn, Estonia, the press service of the deputy premier said on Friday.
Also, according to the deputy PM, Ukraine seeks to be actively involved in the implementation of the EU external investment plan. Separately, Klympush-Tsintsadze noted the need to introduce more advanced models of cooperation for associate partners after they make progress in the implementation of a comprehensive free trade area with the EU.
“The ‘Eastern Partnership Plus’ Initiative should receive a practical basis: the participating countries of the existing program prefer to access the “four EU freedoms,” namely, the freedom of movement of goods, services, people and capital,” she said.
Separately, Klympush-Tsintsadze raised the topic of cooperation between Ukraine and the EU in the energy sector, since the parties have long been strategic partners in this field. “We completely share the ideas of the Energy Union and we want to join it, which will promote competition in the domestic market, strengthen regional cooperation and improve energy security,” the deputy prime minister said.
Kyivstar, the largest Ukrainian mobile operator, has paid nearly UAH 1 billion to the national budget for 4G communications licenses in the 2600 MHz band, company president Peter Chernyshov has said.
“Today Ukraine has been covered not only with snow but also with money. Kyivstar has paid UAH 916.3 million to the national budget for 4G licenses in the 2600 MHz range. This is almost UAH 1 billion,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
As reported, the big three Ukrainian mobile operators, following the results of the tender, undertook to pay UAH 2.456 billion for 80 MHz in the 2600 MHz band for the right to deploy 4G communications.
Lifecell purchased two lots for a total of 30 MHz for UAH 909.25 million, Kyivstar three lots totaling 30 MHz for UAH 916.3 million and Vodafone-Ukraine two lots totaling 20 MHz for UAH 631 million.
The former top managers of PrivatBank (Kyiv) are creating a bank in the UK, a counterpart of the mobile bank Monobank, Dmytro Dubilet, the ex-director for information technologies at PrivatBank, said on his Facebook page.
“I publish the first episode about how Oleh Horokhovsky, Mykhailo Rohalsky and me are launching a bank in the UK … We’ve decided to open a bank in the UK – a counterpart of Monobank. And we decided to do something like a reality show from it. We have to find contractors and partners, get licenses, and, most importantly, we have to raise capital. And we will make videos about all this and post on this channel (YouTube),” he wrote.
Ex-first deputy head of PrivatBank Oleh Horokhovsky said on Facebook “the English project is not just a business project. It’s a real test that sums up everything that was done before and sets an incredible bar.”
As reported, Horokhovsky, Dubilet and ex-head of the Payments and Transfers business at PrivatBank Mykhailo Rohalsky in January 2017 announced their intention to create an IT company, Fintech Band. According to Dubilet, the company will deal with processing, CRM systems, credit cards, Internet banking, etc.
By October 2017 Monobank issued the first thousand credit cards, and in February of this year it starts to attract deposits.
Dubilet’s father, Oleksandr Dubilet, before the nationalization of PrivatBank in late 2016 headed the board of this financial institution.
