27 EU leaders have agreed on an additional €50 billion package of support for Ukraine within the EU budget, European Council President Charles Michel said.
“We have an agreement. We have unity. All 27 leaders have agreed on an additional €50 billion package of support for Ukraine within the EU budget. This provides sustainable, long-term and predictable funding for Ukraine. The EU is taking the lead and responsibility in supporting Ukraine; we know what is at stake,” Michel wrote on social media platform X on Thursday.
Ukraine’s seaports are not yet at full capacity and are able to increase the potential of grain transportation, said Yuriy Lytvyn, Head of the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority (USPA), at a meeting of the Grain Club of the Ukrainian Grain Association on Tuesday.
“The potential of transportation, in particular, from Odesa, is significantly higher. The proof of this is the record results of the Ukrainian “grain corridor”, which was opened after the termination of the “grain initiative” in December 2023,” he said.
According to Lytvyn, the figures for grain exports in January 2024 are slightly lower than the previous month. However, January is the month of the traditional decline in sea transportation.
At the same time, he noted an increase in the delivery of grain cargo to the ports of Greater Odesa by both rail and road.
“Today, the port of Chornomorsk has increased its car handling fivefold compared to the pre-war period. However, unfortunately, bulk cargo is not very good for Chornomorsk itself. There are some difficulties with the organization of the process,” said the USPA head.
He also emphasized that traders and local authorities are doing everything possible to speed up the process and reduce the time for unloading vehicles.
Speaking about the work of Pivdennyi port, Lytvyn noted that it is being used at 30-48% of its capacity to receive grain cargo.
“The Ministry of Infrastructure, together with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and us (USPA – IF-U), are working to expand the acceptance of cargoes that may be damaged (during the shelling of port infrastructure by the Russian side – IF-U). I mean container and ferry transportation,” Lytvyn said.
Answering a question about the fate of the port in Mykolaiv, the head of the USPA explained that the agency pays much attention to its fate and constantly consults with the military.
“The military leadership is unanimous in its position: due to security issues, unblocking the port of Mykolaiv is impossible. The ports of Mykolaiv region are under direct enemy fire from potentially dangerous areas. The military is not giving any forecasts (on the timing of their unblocking – IF-U),” he said.
The head of the USPA also reminded that Ukraine still has the occupied Kherson port, which has not yet had a single employee of the agency on its territory – it is closed.
As reported, the USPA said that Ukrainian seaports are ready to work in any case of destruction and can increase exports of agricultural goods.
Ovostar Union, a vertically integrated holding company, one of the leading producers of eggs and egg products in Ukraine, increased its livestock to 7.7 million heads in 2023, including 6.4 million laying hens, compared to 7.2 million and 6.0 million a year earlier.
“In 2023, the company focused on the gradual restoration of the livestock, which resulted in a 7% increase in the number of chickens. Efforts have also been made to restructure the product portfolio and sales channels to achieve greater efficiency,” Ovostar CEO Boris Belikov said in a stock exchange announcement.
He noted that, given the fairly successful solution of these problems, the management is satisfied with the group’s performance.
It is indicated that the volume of egg production in 2023 decreased by 1% to 1 531 million, and sales in the shell egg segment decreased by 10% to 970 million.
At the same time, Ovostar indicated that the volume of egg exports increased by 18.6% to 344 million units, accounting for 35% of total sales in the segment, compared to 27% in 2022.
According to the report, in 2023, the volume of egg processing amounted to 492 million eggs, which is 15% higher than the previous year. At the same time, the production of dry egg products decreased by 1% to 2.512 thousand tons, while the production of liquid egg products increased by 20% to 12.998 thousand tons.
It is specified that the volume of sales of dry egg products increased by 15% to 2,468 thousand tons, including exports – by 17.2% to 1,695 thousand tons, which increased its share to 69% from 68%.
Sales of liquid egg products in 2023 increased by 20% compared to 2022 and amounted to 12.828 thousand tons, including exports – by 19.8% to 5.17 thousand tons, which maintained its share at 40%.
As reported, Ovostar earned $29.08 million in net profit in 9M2023, which is 12.2 times better than in the same period of 2022. Its revenue for the first nine months increased by 36.3% to $123.06 million, mainly due to higher prices for its products.
The European Business Association (EBA) has appealed to the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk not to vote for the draft laws No. 10439-10440 on the reform of the Bureau of Economic Security (BES) and amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code and other legislative acts to improve the work of the BES and to finalize the draft laws No. 10088 and No. 10088-1 on the reboot of the BES, which were previously registered in the Rada.
As noted in the EBA statement on Wednesday, the government’s draft law, in particular, does not specify the timeframe for the formation of a renewed BES team after the election of the head, and the re-certification of employees is postponed until after the war.
“For several years, the European Business Association has been emphasizing the need to reboot the BES in order to improve its efficiency and mitigate corruption risks that may arise in the work of this state body, which is responsible for combating economic crime and smuggling,” the EBA emphasizes.
The Association insists that the selection of key positions at the BES should be carried out on a competitive basis, and that it is extremely important and of top priority to appoint an effective leader who will continue to form the team. Therefore, the competition commission should propose to the Prime Minister one, not three, candidates for the position of director in order to avoid possible political influence on such an appointment.
According to business representatives, re-certification of all BES employees is necessary after the election of a new head, and all economic crimes (after the reform) should be within the BES’s competence.
Regarding the criticism of Draft Law No. 10440, the EBA pointed out the difficulty of implementing some of its provisions, in particular, the involvement of the Business Ombudsman Council in searches and seizures in BES proceedings. In addition, according to the association, some provisions duplicate or contradict others, for example, the failure to involve representatives of other law enforcement agencies in investigative actions.
As reported, on October 13, 2023, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy recommended that the Parliament adopt as a basis the draft law No. 10088 “On Priority Measures for Reforming the BES” and its alternative No. 10088-1. This draft law was also supported by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economy, and the Ministry of Justice made comments.
Later, on December 29, 2023, the Cabinet of Ministers approved its draft law on reforming the BES, which declares a reboot of the Bureau a year after the war. It was sharply criticized by Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, and Yaroslav Zheleznyak, first deputy head of the parliamentary committee in charge. According to them, in this form, the control over the BES will be retained by the President’s Office, and the IMF will not count this structural beacon.
As a result, the government postponed submitting the draft law to the Rada for a month, but even after it was finalized, it was criticized.
PJSC SIC Borshchahivskiy Chemical Pharmaceutical Plant (BCPP, Kyiv) increased production by 17.6% in 2023 compared to 2022, to almost UAH 1.866 billion, but reduced it by 3.3% in physical terms, to 34.8 million packs.
According to the plant’s information disclosure system, the company sold 40.3 million packs last year, which is 7.8% less than a year earlier, while total sales increased by 16.5% to UAH 1.806 billion.
At the same time, 29.4 million packs were sold in the domestic market (9.9% less than a year earlier) for UAH 1.537 billion (an increase of 16.2%).
At the same time, exports of products in 2023 increased by 18.5% in monetary terms to UAH 269 million, while decreasing by 1.7% in physical terms to 10.9 million packs.
BCPP notes that about 52% of the total product range last year was sold outside the country. In particular, 52% of export deliveries were made to neighboring countries, 48% – to Australia, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, North America and the Caribbean.
In 2023, the production nomenclature amounted to about 130 items of medicinal products in nine therapeutic areas, veterinary products, dietary supplements and extracts. In particular, the Company launched seven new products, including respiratory, digestive and metabolic, nervous system, musculoskeletal, antibiotic and dietary supplements.
Capital investments in the company’s own development in 2023 amounted to UAH 64.9 million.
In 2022, BCPP reduced its net profit by 24.8% to UAH 254.275 million. Net profit for 2020 increased by 1.7 times compared to 2019 to UAH 332.847 million.
As of the first quarter of 2023, 31.8% of BCPP shares were owned by the pharmaceutical company PrJSC “Pharmaceutical Firm “Darnitsa” (Kyiv).
According to the Opendatabot system, the ultimate beneficiaries of BCPP are also the beneficiary of the pharmaceutical company “Darnitsa” Hlib Zagoriy, Yevhen Sova and Tetiana Artemenko.
Ukraine’s state budget has received about $390 million from Japan as part of World Bank projects aimed at social protection and agricultural recovery, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement on Wednesday evening.
According to the report, Japan’s financial assistance in January consists of a $89.8 million grant under the Emergency Project for Inclusive Support for Ukraine’s Agricultural Recovery (ARISE) and a $300 million loan under the Investing in Social Protection to Improve Coverage, Resilience, and Efficiency (INSPIRE) project.
“I am grateful to the World Bank and the Government of Japan for their strong financial support for Ukraine. The funds raised will be used to reimburse the expenditures of the state budget of Ukraine for priority needs, in particular in the field of recovery and social assistance,” Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko said in a release.
The Ministry of Finance reminded that the INSPIRE project is funded by a $1.2 billion loan from the World Bank from the Trust Fund for the Provision of Necessary Credit Support to Ukraine (ADVANCE Ukraine) with the support of the Government of Japan and aims to ensure social protection of vulnerable populations during and after the war, as well as to strengthen the adaptability of the social support system to effectively respond to current and future challenges.
The ARISE project aims to support agricultural producers’ access to finance through concessional lending and grants.
