ASTANA. Oct 9 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Kazakh businessmen may take part in the privatization of Ukrainian enterprises, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Regional Development, Construction and Utilities Minister Hennadiy Zubko said.
“Our task today is to create a Ukrainian-Kazakh business council, which should provide specific help and handle issues relating to the business of Ukrainian companies in Kazakhstan and Kazakh enterprises,” Zubko told a Kazakh-Ukrainian business forum in Astana on Friday.
He said that “Ukrainian business clearly understands what needs to be done and how to develop in Kazakhstan.”
“In the same way, we want to see Kazakh companies in the privatization of Ukrainian enterprises. Because the reforms in the two countries are going virtually simultaneously. For this reason, we would like to move in the direction of increasing our countries’ economies while supporting each other,” Zubko said.
Zubko said the arrival of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kazakhstan and a meeting of businessmen at an economic business forum will help restart the relations between the two countries.
KYIV. Oct 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine and Germany plan to sign an agreement on the creation of the German-Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry during a business forum in Berlin on October 23, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk has said.
“The German-Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is a body that would allow German and Ukrainian businesses to invest [in Ukraine], create jobs, and move towards the modernization of the Ukrainian economy,” he said while opening a cabinet meeting in Kyiv on Wednesday.
He said that the chamber would trigger the development of Ukrainian-German economic relations.
Yatseniuk said that on October 23, an investment forum will take place in Germany. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as representatives of Ukrainian and German businesses will participate in the forum.
He said that Ukraine and Germany have signed a package of economic and financial support worth EUR 500 million.
KYIV. Oct 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Swiss pharmaceutical company Acino plans to invest in production of new pharmaceutical products in Ukraine, build up the staff of Pharma Start company, which Acino has acquired and integrating into the company’s production facilities in the quality audit system.
“I cannot say how much investment and when we plan, but first, this will be investment in the development of the staff, investment to integrate in the quality audit system and investment in the development and production of new products that would be made in Ukraine. However, initially, this will be investment in people in order to integrate Pharma Start in the Acino family,” Acino Group CEO Jostein Davidsen told reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday.
He did not disclose the sum of the deal, referring to the fact that the owners of Acino are two private equity funds.
“One should understand that the cost of the deal is not linked to the market, but to the devaluation of the national currency,” he said.
Davidsen said that the development plans in Ukraine include the introduction of new products to the market and development of the existing product range.
“We have a wide product range and we have plans to invest in new and old products. We would add our own products to Pharma Start’s portfolio. I want to say that the portfolios of Pharma Start and Acino are very complimentary. They also produce medicine to treat heart, neurological diseases and over-the-counter drugs. We have two or three coinciding products,” he said.
“We focus on generics which production is sophisticated and which could be taken once a day instead of three times a day and medicines with the novel drug delivery forms, in particular, plasters,” he said.
Davidsen said that the company plans to invest to build up the structure to promote products in Central Asia and Belarus.
“Today, there is a representative office in Uzbekistan and partnership agreements to export to Russia. We have some plans for non-CIS countries, but this is medium- and long-term outlook,” he said.
Commenting on the acquisition of Pharma Start in Ukraine, he said that the company was bought as a part of the development strategy for quickly developing markets. This would allow the company to more than triple turnover in five years, to EUR 1 billion.
“The largest part of the company’s growth will be via mergers and acquisitions. In December 2014, we bought a small company in Russia Copharm, and the second acquisition is Pharma Start in Ukraine. We’re designing projects and looking for other mergers and acquisitions both on the CIS and in the Middle East, South Africa and the central part of South America,” he said.
“We will invest in Pharma Start’s business. Our goal is to enter top ten for sure and maybe top five of the largest companies in Ukraine in the coming five years,” he said.
He said that “the company we bought is in line with our parameters – it is not very large and not very small.”
He said that before buying the Ukrainian company Acino Group studied “not many offers, as not many companies were in line with the Acino’s requirements and not many companies in Ukraine want to be sold.”
He said that international pharmaceutical manufacturers are careful in acquiring assets in Ukraine or Russia.
“We don’t rule out that there will be more merger and acquisition projects on the pharmaceutical market in Ukraine. Despite everything that was happening in Ukraine recently, crisis, political and economic instability, Ukraine is the market with a very good potential in the long-term outlook,” he said.
“We know that there are some risks when you buy a company in the politically and economically instable country. These risks are to be calculated. Despite this, we hope that in the future we will see growth from quickly developing markets. However, recently due to the outflow of money from these markets, the slow is seen. Today there are few companies which are ready to invest and build something, while before late 2013, everyone wanted to invest in Ukraine, Russia and the CIS,” he said.
Acino, a Swiss pharmaceutical company headquartered in Aesch, Switzerland, develops, manufactures well-proven and innovative pharmaceuticals in novel drug delivery forms. Acino is a leader in advanced drug delivery technologies with a focus on modified release oral forms, oral dispersible forms, transdermal systems and extended release parenterals, for which it also holds patents.
KHARKIV. Oct 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Public joint-stock company Kharkiv Tractor Plant plans to launch mass production of electric tractors by the end of this year, Director General Vladyslav Hubin has said.
“This tractor is a joint design with AutoEnterprise company. It does not have analogs in the world. The tractor has lithium-ion batteries with a capacity of 40 kW and the electric engine of 40 hp. It takes from two to four hours to charge it. The tractor can operate for up to eight hours in the transportation mode and up to four hours in the traction mode. By the end of the year we want to start its mass production with our partners AutoEnterprise,” Hubin said at a press conference on Wednesday.
He also said that the plant is currently working on boosting the capacity of the tractor.
Hubin said that in the coming two years the plant wants to design a range of electric tractors with a capacity of 25 to 360 hp.
The presentation of the new electric tractor will be held at the AGROPORT 2015 international forum to take place in Kharkiv on October 15 through October 17.
Kharkiv Tractor Plant produces wheeled and tracked tractors, as well as road-building machinery based on tractors.
KYIV. Oct 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) and Finance Ministry of Ukraine have drawn up a draft law on financial restructuring of the debt of companies under bank credits, and the document could apply to the debt of around UAH 200 billion.
“This concerns voluntarily restructuring of bad debts of corporate borrowers… It is proposed that the off-court settling of bad debts is legislated for the interim period of next three years,” Deputy Finance Minister Artem Shevalev said at a presentation of the draft law for journalists at the NBU in Kyiv on Wednesday.
He said that the goal of the initiative is to accelerate the restoration of the financial and corporate sectors using the financial and operating restructuring of bad credits, retain economically viable enterprises and jobs in the real economic sector, accelerate the settling of the uncollectable debts in the banking sector, which would allow banks to resume crediting of new borrowers in the real economic sector, create a reliable and effective mechanisms for informal settling of bad debts issue between creditors and companies.
Shevalev added that potentially economically viable companies-debtors, including municipal and public enterprises, could take part in this restructuring. The possibility of returning the companies to the successful economic operations if the debt problem is settled would be assessed before the restructuring process.
“The mechanism for defining vitality will be transparent; independent experts and leading audit companies will be involved,” he said.
He said that the restructuring procedure could start if there are at least three financial institutions, which are parties of the market agreement, or one financial institution that has at least 25% of the debt. If temporary administration is introduced in the bank-creditor, the Individuals’ Deposit Guarantee Fund would present the creditor in the restructuring procedure. If the company-debtor and the bank are affiliated, they cannot take part in the restructuring process simultaneously.
Shevalev said that the coordinator of the process will be a group of experts, consisting of representatives of the NBU, Finance Ministry, Economic Development and Trade Ministry and Justice Ministry.
Deputy NBU Head Vladyslav Rashkovan said that as of September 1, 2015, the credit portfolio of banks totaled around UAH 930 billion, including UAH 761.5 billion of credits issued to corporate clients or 82%. The share of overdue debt of corporate clients of the banks’ credit portfolio was 17%, he said.
KYIV. Oct 7 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian seaports in January-September 2015 increased cargo transshipment by 3.7% compared to the same period in 2014, to 107.024 million tonnes.
According to live data from the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority, state port operators managed by the Ministry of Infrastructure handled 37.351 million tonnes (35% of the total volume), other port operators (mostly privately owned) transshipped 69.672 million tonnes (65%).
Transshipment of exported cargo totaled 75.157 million tonnes, imported freight totaled 13.448 million tonnes, transit goods – 12.81 million tonnes, and cabotage cargo – 5.608 million tonnes.
In particular, Yuzhny port (Odesa region), the largest in terms of handling, in January-September 2015 increased cargo transshipment by 4.6%, to 35.48 million tonnes. Transshipment of exported cargo increased by 5.1%, to 27.595 million tonnes, imported cargo by 38.2%, to 3.774 million tonnes, transit freight decreased by 16.7%, to 4.09 million tonnes, and cabotage – by 31.4%, to 20,510 tonnes.
Liquid cargo amounted to 3.298 million tonnes (down by 11.7%), while dry and bulk goods totaled 31.689 million tonnes (7.3% up), and packaged items stood at 492,500 tonnes (a decrease of 25.5%).
Odesa maritime merchant port in January-September handled 19.006 million tonnes of cargo, which is 7.5% higher than a year earlier. Transshipment of exported cargo increased by 21.5%, to 13.755 million tonnes, imported goods decreased by 21%, to 1.941 million tonnes, transit freight fell by 15.2%, to 3.264 million tonnes, and cabotage fell by 17%, to 46,000 tonnes.
