KYIV. Sept 4 (Interfax-Ukraine) – A memorandum on grain exports in the 2015/2016 marketing year (July-June) between grain traders and the Ministry of Agricultural Policy and Food will be signed after September 20, 2015.
“This year the memorandum has not been signed, yet. We will sign it after September 20, when there will be data on the quality of harvested wheat,” President of the Ukrainian Grain Association Volodymyr Klymenko said at a press conference in Kyiv.
He added that Ukraine has harvested a good wheat yield this year, and the country also has rather large wheat ending stocks from last year.
“This year we expect the harvest to reach 60 million tonnes. We do not know what we’ll have on corn, Europe has lost 20% of its harvest,” the expert said.
According to him, since the beginning of the MY, Ukraine has exported 5.817 million tonnes of grain, specifically wheat – 2.64 million tonnes, barley – 1.86 million tonnes, and corn – 1.3 million tonnes.
KYIV. Sept 4 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will issue a credit line of up to EUR75 million to Ukrainian banks as financing of the residential sector energy efficiency program, which at the first phase includes OTP Bank and Raiffeisen Bank Aval in the program (both based in Kyiv).
Senior Communications Adviser at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Anton Usov told Interfax-Ukraine that the bank’s board of directors approved the relevant projects at a meeting on September 2.
It is expected that the EBRD will provide funds to financial institutions, which, in turn, will lend to end borrowers in the housing sector, including individual homeowners, groups of homeowners, housing associations, construction associations and cooperatives. These projects should foresee the use of investment in high technology and energy efficiency measures to reduce energy consumption by at least 20%.
The document states that the bank’s funds are supplemented with the mobilized hryvnia resources of Ukrainian banks participating in the program in the amount of up to EUR65 million.
KYIV. Sept 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Ukrainian Parliament has passed at second reading draft law No. 0052 on ratifying the agreement (in the form of exchange of notes) between the Ukrainian and Japanese governments on the provision of a loan to realize the project to modernize the Bortnychi aeration station as part of the implementation of the project to reconstruct sewage treatment facilities and the construction of a production line for sewage-sludge treatment and utilization of the Bortnychi aeration station.
A total of 265 lawmakers supported the law.
The law ratified the agreement signed on June 6, 2015 in Kyiv between Ukraine and Japan on the provision of a loan of JPY 108.193 billion (around $901 million).
The agreement foresees that the crediting term is 40 years with a payment grace period of 10 years. The credit rate is 0.1%. A Japanese company will be the general contractor of the project and the volume of Japanese goods used during the realization of the project is to be at least 30% of the cost of the contract.
KYIV. Sept 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Cabinet of Ministers has approved the financial plan of state enterprise Energoatom (Kyiv) for 2015 with a projected net profit of UAH 1.2 billion.
“[The enterprise will make a] UAH 1.2 billion net profit after two years of losses,” Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Volodymyr Demchyshyn said after a cabinet meeting.
He added that, according to the financial plan, Energoatom in 2015 will pay UAH 6 billion in various taxes to the budget.
As reported, Energoatom is the operator of all four operating nuclear power plants in Ukraine. It operates 15 units equipped with VVER reactors with a total installed electrical capacity of 13.835 GW.
KYIV. Sept 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Twenty-two member states of the European Union have already completed the ratification of Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said,
“As of today, 22 EU member states have already ratified [the agreement]…This process has been completed in the legal aspect,” he said during a joint meeting of the Verkhovna Rada Committees for European Integration and Foreign Affairs on Wednesday.
Klimkin said that six EU countries are yet to complete ratification: the Czech Republic, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Greece and Cyprus, adding that the process is ongoing in the latter two countries.
According to Klimkin, the key political parties in Greece have promised Ukraine that the ratification process will be speeded up as soon as the upcoming elections in Greece are held, a position echoed by the Greek Foreign Ministry.
“As for Cyprus, the situation is connected with the parliament’s desire to see our final aspiration and devotion to this affair, to put amendments to the convention on evading double taxation. There is an essential lobby in the Cyprian parliament [on this issue]. Now this issue has been settled,” Klimkin said,
In addition, he said that on September 4-5 there will be an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers to discuss strengthening the influence of the EU in the Eastern Partnership countries.
Klimkin said that the foreign ministers will also discuss the strategic vision of the development of EU – Russian relations, as well as the ongoing process of reform in Ukraine.
KYIV. Sept 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Infrastructure Ministry plans to improve the procedure for collecting port dues at Ukrainian seaports, the press service of the ministry has reported.
The press service said that the draft order has been registered.
“The amendments defined in the document would promote an increase in the attractiveness and transparency of the functioning of Ukrainian seaports, and for port operators, ship owners and other companies operating at seaports this means the improvement of doing business conditions,” the report said.
Among changes proposed by the draft order is exemption from paying the canal duty for ships with a water draft of up to four meters which wish to use the Bug-Dnipro Estuary and Kherson sea canals, which would create economic preconditions for the reorientation of freight from roads to rivers, as well as an increase in volume of coastal shipments using inner water ways; the establishment of separate rates of the ship dues for port operators-owners of operational water areas as a mechanism of compensating the funds invested by them in the development of the seaport water area; the exemption from paying the port dues by anchored ships, which do not carry out freight operations.
It is also foreseen that the double accruing of port dues for ships that pass the port water area and the operational water area is not allowed; the requirements on port dues have been specified to avoid different interpretations, port dues discounts have been systematized (they were previously defined in separate orders), which would allow for making their collection more predictable and transparent; a discount of 50% to the port dues in the estuary and on the Danube River is set for international passenger cruisers.
The draft order also propose that the practice of collecting the administrative fee from foreign passenger cruisers with the purpose of servicing passengers-participants of the cruise would be settled, and that ships of the Ukrainian Navy are exempted from paying the fees, etc.
