KYIV. June 8 (Interfax) – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has thanked Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for the extension of $1.5 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine.
“I am grateful to Japan for extending loan guarantees amounting to $1.5 billion, which should enable us to ensure Ukraine’s financial stability,” Poroshenko said following negotiations with the Japanese prime minister on Saturday.
As reported, in May, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine Valeriy Chaly has met with Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan Yasumasa Nagamine and discussed the provision of financial assistance to Ukraine.
“Chaly thanked the Japanese side for their large-scale financial assistance to Ukraine, in particular, the issue of $1.5 billion in credit assistance for implementing a number of projects in support of development. The official also welcomed Japan’s decision to provide Ukraine with an extra aid of $316.6 million to stabilize the national economy and support reforms,” the presidential website reported.
Moreover, Japan also decided to allocate $16.6 million for implementation of the projects on restoration of social-economic infrastructure of damaged Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
KYIV. June 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Japan confirmed a provision of a JPY 108 billion loan for the reconstruction of Bortnychi aeration station.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were present during the signing of the respective document in Kyiv on Saturday.
As reported, on February 11, 2015 representatives of PJSC Kyivvodokanal (Kyiv) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) said the signing of a loan agreement between the government of Ukraine and Japan as part of the reconstruction of Bortnychi aeration station is expected in early summer 2015.
The cost of preparation work Ukraine is obliged to fulfill before the start of the realization of the project and the signing of the agreement is assessed at UAH 125 million, of which UAH 5 million would be meant for a fitting of the European project to the Japanese technology standards financed in 2014.
KYIV. July 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – PJSC AvtoKrAZ (Kremenchuk, Poltava region), the only Ukrainian producer of heavy vehicles, in January-June 2015 increased production by 20.5% from the same period in 2014, to 577 units.
According to the press service of the company, KrAZ sales in the first half of 2015 rose by 22.7%, to 519 units.
Of the total amount of vehicles produced exports accounted for 32%, the domestic market – 67%.
In addition to basic production, specifically trucks, in the first half of the year the plant shipped four semi-trailers and 13 trailers to the customer, while in January-June last year these products were not manufactured.
The report notes that in June the plant increased production by 30% from May this year and by 22.5% from June of the past year, to 125 vehicles, while in monetary terms production grew by 26.2%.
The press service also said that in late June the plant passed three mobile pumping units to Energoatom to be in keeping power units in a safe condition.
New KrAZ-63221 trucks are being manufactured in cooperation with Tital, a Ukrainian developer and manufacturer of fire and rescue vehicles and equipment.
The ultimate customer of these vehicles is Yuzhnoukrainsk nuclear power plant (Mykolaiv region).
KYIV. July 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian companies will be able to export duty-free goods worth about $200 million to the United States per year after the updating of the U.S. program, the Generalized System of Preferences, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Aivaras Abromavicius said at a press conference in Kyiv.
The minister said that Ukraine has not been involved in this program since 2013, but in the last year of Ukrainian participation, Ukrainian companies supplied goods worth $111 million under this program, and according to U.S.’ estimates Ukraine used a mere 65% of its potential.
“Based on this figure, we can calculate that duty-free goods supplies to the U.S. should amount to about $200 million,” he said.
As reported, the updated U.S. program of the Generalized System of Preferences, which allows duty-free exports of about 5,000 items of goods to the United States, will come into force from July 29.
KYIV. July 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Twenty-one out of the 28 member states of the European Union have already ratified the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement and four countries have launched ratification procedures, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said.
“Although it was previously supposed that the whole process would take more than three years, today, a year later, 21 of 28 EU countries have already completed the process of ratification and four countries are currently implementing this process,” Poroshenko said before talks with President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz in Kyiv.
The president stressed the importance of the synchronous ratification of this document by the Verkhovna Rada and the European Parliament a year ago.
“This step has significantly accelerated the procedure of ratification of the Association Agreement with EU states,” Poroshenko said.
In turn, Schulz said that the initiative on the joint ratification of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU was down to Poroshenko.
“It is the only occasion of such large-scale synchronous ratification in history,” he added.
KYIV. July 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Kyiv-based Raiffeisen Bank Aval have decided to allocate $60 million on a parity basis under a farmers lending project for the purchase of plant protection products from the Ukrainian subsidiary of German-based Bayer AG.
The IFC reported that its board of directors approved the project on June 29, 2015 and the IFC’s contribution under the project will amount to $30 million.
The proposed project is similar to a program organized by the IFC, Raiffeisen Bank Aval and Bayer in 2011.
The purpose of the project is to boost the productivity and efficiency of agribusinesses in Ukraine by improving access to finance for the purchase of seeds and crop protection products. The program is expected to engage about 20,000 small and medium-sized farms.
The previous program covered more than 11,300 farms.
