KYIV. Nov 13 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in November downgraded its forecast for sunflower harvest in Ukraine in 2017 by 500,000 tonnes compared with the forecast in October, to 13 million tonnes.
According to a report on the website of the U.S. department, the forecast for sunflower oil production in the 2017/2018 marketing year (MY, September-August) was reduced by 194,000 tonnes, to 5.59 million tonnes, exports by 150,000 tonnes, to 5 million tonnes.
According to USDA forecasts, production of sunflower meal in Ukraine in the current season will amount to 5.369 million tonnes, its exports will stand at 4.5 million tonnes.
According to the estimates of the U.S. agency, in the 2016/2017 MY Ukraine supplied 5.85 million tonnes of sunflower oil to foreign markets with production being 6.35 million tonnes.
According to the State Statistics Service, Ukraine in 2016 increased sunflower harvest by 21.7% compared to 2015, to 13.6 million tonnes.
Ukraine is the world’s leader in production and export of sunflower oil.
KYIV. Nov 13 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Euroformat LLC plant (Kyiv), a large Ukrainian elevator manufacturer, has signed a contract with Trakcja PRKiI S.A. (Poland), a general contractor for the modernization of Polish Railway, the company has told Interfax-Ukraine.
“This contract is interesting, first of all, by the customer’s significance and coverage throughout the country. Elevators will be operated in difficult conditions, often outside the premises, which will actually allow testing their strength and emphasizing the reliability of equipment. We’ve started the first delivery of Euroformat lifts to the several stations of the E30 Zabrze-Katowice-Krakow track with the prospect of delivery to all platforms along this railway line, as well as in the E20 Warsaw-Poznan direction,” head of the commercial department of the plant Oleksiy Kramarenko said.
Today Poland for the company is the main export market. A representative office was created in this country in 2015, and this direction is actively developing.
Euroformat group of companies has been operating in the Ukrainian market for more than 15 years. It specializes in production of goods and services for residential and commercial construction. The structure is represented by its own research and development center, factories, assembly companies.
KYIV. Nov 13 (Interfax-Ukraine) – PJSC Motor Sich (Zaporizhia) plans soon to start supplying helicopters with new aircraft weapons to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
A source in the Motor Sich management told Interfax-Ukraine on Friday that the company was currently completing state trials of Mi-2MSB and Mi-8MSB multi-purpose military aircraft equipped with unguided S-8 80 mm and S-13 122 mm rockets.
“The major part of state trials of Mi-2MSBs equipped with unguided S-8 rockets has already been successfully completed. State trials of Mi-8MSBs with unguided S-13 rockets are in the final stage,” he said.
The source said that Motor Sich had started creating new aircraft weapons for Mi-2MSB and Mi-8MSB helicopters amid new challenges to the country’s defense capability.
Motor Sich is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of engines for aircraft and industrial gas turbines. In 2012, Motor Sich helicopter design bureau was created in Zaporizhia.
KYIV. Nov 10 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The business of Siemens in Ukraine in the 2018 financial year (October 2017-September 2018) is expected to grow by at least 10%, Siemens Ukraine CEO Maciej Tomasz Zielinski has said.
“Last fiscal year we grew more than expected: revenues increased by 11%, new orders by 28%, profit margins were higher than those stipulated in the budget. And next year we plan to work with clients even more actively. I expect the growth will be 10% and even more. The plans are very ambitious, I see significant prospects and many opportunities in all sectors,” the expert said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, new orders grew in all divisions: digital production, industrial automation, continuous processes and drives, electric power (production, transmission and distribution of energy), building automation and infrastructure.
Among the most intensified areas, Zielinski singled out mining and metallurgical and agro-industrial complexes.
He said one of the priorities of development in Ukraine is digitalization of industry – not only software, but the whole cycle from the creation of a digital product double, including digital production and service provision.
Siemens Ukraine, established in 1997, is a supplier of products, services and integrated solutions for energy, industry, transport, building automation and urban infrastructure. The central office is in Kyiv, while regional branches are located in Lviv, Dnipro, Kryvy Rih, Odesa, and Kharkiv.
KYIV. Nov 10 (Interfax-Ukraine) – HarvEast Holding on November 8, 2017 decided to create new division HarvEast Irrigation Seeds for operational reasons.
“The need to create a new separate structural unit is connected with focusing HarvEast Holding’s efforts on development of the irrigation system, as well as large-scale plans for seed production,” Director General of HarvEast Holding Dmytro Skorniakov told Interfax-Ukraine.
The main tasks of the new division are to expand the areas under irrigation, efficient management of irrigated areas, launch of a new seed plant, development of seed production in irrigated land areas and cooperation in hybridization with foreign companies.
Vadym Mischuk, who previously held a different operational position in the company, has been appointed Head of HarvEast Irrigation Seeds.
“The creation of a separate cluster HarvEast Irrigation Seeds will help the agricultural holding to achieve maximum results in these directions within the optimal time frames,” Skorniakov said.
As reported, HarvEast Holding is building a seed plant with a capacity of 10 tonnes per hour. The plant will post-processing of seeds of leguminous and grain crops. Earlier the company had a seed plant, but it lost control over the enterprise due to hostilities in eastern Ukraine.
In 2017, HarvEast signed a cooperation agreement with Maisadour, the seed company.
Maisadour would provide parent sunflower lines for planting seeds to HarvEast. Then Maisadour will assign the number to the batch and process the seeds at own plant in Dnipropetrovsk region and then the seeds will be returned to HarvEast.
In 2017, the agroholding installed irrigation systems on 400 ha and in 2018 plans to install them on 700 more ha.
KYIV. Nov 10 (Interfax-Ukraine) – KMZ Industries and Agroprosperis Bank (Kyiv) have signed a partnership agreement on financing of purchases of silo equipment for small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises at preferential credit rates.
According to a posting on the website of the bank, the partnership program simplifies the acquisition of equipment for processing and storing grain crops from KMZ Industries.
Under the terms of the partnership program, the credits are issued in the amount of up to $400,000 or in the hryvnia equivalent for the period of up to 40 months at preferential rate starting from 6.55%.
The bank is to take the final decision to issue the credit in three days.
Farmers with cultivated land from 100 ha who have experience in agricultural production for over three farming cycles can participate in the program.
Agroprosperis Bank Board Chairman Serhiy Schepansky said that the program is as much as possible adapted to the needs of farmers.
“The partnership program offers farmers not only a convenient loan repayment schedule in accordance with the season, but also the possibility not to pay the down payment provided that additional collateral or a crop receipt is provided,” he said.
As reported, early February 2016 PJSC Astra Bank was renamed PJSC Agroprosperis Bank.
In July 2015 Agro Holding (Ukraine) Limited, a subsidiary of an investment fund managed by NCH Capital (the United States), bought insolvent Astra Bank for UAH 92.1 million.
According to the NBU, the owners of the bank are beneficiaries of NCH Capital (the United States) George Rohr and Morris Tabacinic, who indirectly owned 100% of the financial institution.
KMZ Industries (Poltava region) produces agricultural machinery and silos.
Dragon Capital Investments Limited (Cyprus) held 93.2386% of shares in the company as of Q4 2016.
