KYIV. June 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – As of Tuesday morning, 2,910 Ukrainian citizens have used the visa-free regime with Europe, spokesman of the State Border Service of Ukraine Oleh Slobodian said.
“As of 06:00 on June 13, some 2,910 of our compatriots crossed Ukraine’s border to the EU countries within the framework of the visa-free travel. These are holders of biometric passports, 70% of them crossed the border in the western sector at automobile checkpoints, 7% at railway checkpoints, 23% used airports,” he wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday morning.
Slobodian noted that there were six cases of refusal to let a person across the border. Four of them were connected with the violation of the migration legislation of an EU country during their previous stay and two with the non-confirmation of the purpose of their stay.
“Two of our compatriots were returned by the services of Italy, since they could not confirm the proper level of financial security and did not have return tickets,” he explained.
KYIV. June 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Ukrainian Institute for the Future at the request of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine has prepared proposals for the priority action plan for industrial development in Ukraine based on the analysis of the state of the six key industries (mining, metallurgical, chemical and petrochemical, food industry, electric power engineering, machine building).
According to the press service of the ministry, the plan contains proposals for the target indicators of work for each industry for 2017-2018, instruments to achieve these indicators and the economic effect of applying economic policy measures.
The priority action plan includes 21 proposals for the government, the ministries and the parliament, which, according to the institute’s analysts, if successful, will attract $2.3 billion of investments and create an additional $4.3 billion of GDP.
“The Ukrainian Institute for the Future analyzed proposals from enterprises, industry associations, the experts personally met with the heads of enterprises,” First Deputy Prime Minister Stepan Kubiv said.
According to him, some proposals of industrialists contradict each other, and this is natural.
“But the ministry’s task now is to correct all inconsistencies, for this we will hold a broad discussion with the interested parties and experts,” Kubiv said.
KYIV. June 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Kernel, a large Ukrainian agricultural group, has become a 100% owner of Ukrainian Agricultural Investments (UAI), the company said on its website.
Kernel, in particular, bought an additional 7.9% stake in the deal, which was announced June 2.
As reported, on June 2 Kernel reported it had completed the acquisition of a 92.1% stake in the company, which manages more than 190,000 hectares of leased agricultural land and grain storage facilities for about 200,000 tonnes.
The company will pay $155 million for a 100% stake in the business.
The buyer noted the net working capital of the purchased business exceeds its net debt by more than $30 million.
The company specified the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMC) approved the transaction in May this year, however it does not disclose the name of the acquired agricultural holding.
At the same time, the AMC previously said in May it allowed Jerste B.V. (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), part of Kernel, to acquire over 50% in Ukrainian Agrarian Investments S.A. (Luxembourg), the holding company of Ukrainian Agrarian Investments.
UAI Holding was founded in 2005 by a group of financial investors led by Renaissance Partners investment company.
IVANO-FRANKIVSK. June 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Danosha in February-March 2017 received UAH 3.8 million of state subsidies, the company director for development, Liubov Bohachevska, has said.
“Subsidies work. Earlier we raised the issue of VAT and could not get refunds, but at present we have received 95% of subsidies claimed, which is about UAH 3.8 million for February-March. The main thing for us was to manage to register and we did it,” she said at a press conference in Ivano-Frankivsk.
Bohachevska noted the opening of the land market in Ukraine has a double meaning for the company.
“There are fears that we, as a company with foreign investments, will not be able to buy land, and there will be other restrictions,” she said.
According to the expert, the company believes there won’t be problems with landowners, since they have “good and stable relations.”
“First land owners should ask us whether we are ready to buy land, and then sell it to others. There is just a small nuance: we cannot buy at all [as a company with foreign investments].The best option of opening the market for us is, of course, the possibility of buying land by the company, because we are ready for this,” she said.
In addition, she said Danosha is now carrying out risk management on the issue of land reform.
KYIV. June 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Ukrtiutiun Association of Cigarette Manufacturers considers the automated system of control over turnover of excisable goods proposed by the government to be imperfect and complicating the work of legal producers.
According to an association press release, the draft law provides for an onerous mechanism for providing excise bills by business entities at each of the supply chains with filling in 15 points manually.
Manufacturers of cigarettes also consider the term of introduction of the automated system from April 1, 2018 to be unreasonably optimistic.
At the same time, the association noted the system proposed by the government will not create additional obstacles for illegal trafficking in excisable goods in comparison with the existing mechanisms.
“The wording of the bill approved by the government is a “pig in a poke” for manufacturers of excisable goods, since the functioning of the system will be determined by Cabinet acts, which does not allow understanding the mechanism of its work. It is logical to assume that all the provisions of the first draft of the bill, which were not perceived by the business community and were excluded, will appear in by-laws,” association CEO Valentyna Khomenko said.
KYIV. June 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Naftogaz Ukrainy on June 12 signed an agreement with PricewaterhouseCoopers Polska Sp. Z o.o. (Poland), which won a tender to manage the department for natural gas transportation, according to data in the ProZorro system.
As reported, Naftogaz Ukrainy expects that the services will provide an effective separation of the gas transportation function from Naftogaz Ukrainy Group in accordance with the unbundling plan approved by Cabinet resolution No. 496 of July 1, 2016.
The term of rendering services is till December 31, 2017.
PwC in the course of trading expressed its readiness to become an adviser for UAH 10.785 million, while Boston Consulting Group Sp. Z o.o. for UAH 10.8 million (including VAT). Thus, with the expected cost of services being UAH 24.409 million, PwC reduced the offer by 2.3 times from the initial price.
