Business news from Ukraine

KYIV. May 12 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Rostok-Holding agro-industrial group (Kyiv) plans to harvest 300,000 tonnes of agricultural crops in 2015, which is 10.7% more than last year.

According to a company press release, it has successfully completed the spring sowing campaign: the work was carried out in the best agro-technical terms, and spring crops were sown on 39,600 hectares.

At the same time, areas sown with maize compared to the previous year fell by 9.2%, to 21,800 ha, sunflower – by 22.8%, to 11,200 ha, while soybeans – increased by 2.9%, to 3,500 ha.

In addition, in 2015 Rostok-Holding planted 2,300 hectares with spring barley, which it did not grow last year. The area sown with fodder crops for dairy farming was about 800 ha.

Rostok-Holding, created in 2010, is a vertically integrated agro-industrial group. It specializes in the cultivation and sale of crops, production, processing and sale of dairy products, and grain trading.

KYIV. May 12 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) started working in Ukraine on Tuesday, a government source has told Interfax-Ukraine.

“The work of the mission as a part of the first revision of the EFF program in Ukraine was started on May 12,” the source said.

As reported, referring to the official representative of IMF Jerry Rice, the mission will work for two or three weeks.

The four-year EFF program worth a total of SDR 12.348 billion ($17.516 billion) was approved in March 2015. The IMF is to provide Ukraine with three more tranches of SDR1.182 billion (about $1.63 billion) each in 2015, after the first tranche of $5 billion.

KYIV. May 12 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Turboatom (Kharkiv), Ukraine’s largest producer of turbine equipment, plans to finish shipping energy equipment for unit 5 of Aksu thermal power plant (TPP) in Kazakhstan by the end of 2015.

The press service of the company said that first shipments have been sent.

The press service said that under the contract signed in July 2012, Turboatom will replace unit K-300-240 with the next generation K-325-23.5 turbine at unit 5 Aksu TPP. After modernization, turbine capacity will increase by 25 MW, efficiency will be increased, the life-span of the unit and the whole power plant will be extended, and the environmental performance of TPP will be improved.

In addition to designing, manufacturing and delivery, it will also carry out installation supervision and participate in the startup.

This is the sixth turbine unit which Turboatom will modernize, having modernized turbines at units Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6.

Turboatom is the sole producer of turbine equipment in Ukraine for hydro, heat and nuclear electricity stations. Turboatom specializes in manufacturing turbines for thermal and nuclear power plants, hydraulic turbines for hydroelectric power plants and pumped storage power plants, gas turbines for thermal power plants, steam and gas equipment, and other power equipment.

BRUSSELS. May 12 (Interfax) – The Ukrainian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade believes that not all Ukrainian companies are ready to switch to new working conditions once the economic part of the European Union-Ukraine association agreement comes into effect, and is looking for ways to support business.

“We are hoping for the help from our European partners,” Economic Development and Trade Minister Aivaras Abromavicius told Interfax-Ukraine on Sunday.

Already there have been financial proposals, including of educational programs, the minister said.

“One example is the U.S. fund Western NIS, where the finance minister once worked, which allocated $30 million in grants for four areas, one of which is precisely export promotion that includes workshops, awareness campaigns, education programs and so on,” Abromavicius said.

The ministry is also planning to start training public officials and executives at state-run companies.

“We will have a program for them to be trained at U.S. universities and for Western specialists to come to our country to teach them things like corporate governance,” Abromavicius said.

Talks are already underway with the Kyiv School of Economics and the INSEAD business school over workshops for heads of state-run companies, he said.

The minister said he was convinced that a free trade area with the EU should be a positive factor for Ukrainian economy.

“There are real figures from Moldova and Georgia whose exports rose by 20% in the first quarter after the agreement came into effect,” Abromavicius said.

KYIV. May 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – PJSC SvizhachOK (Zaporizhia region), whose major shareholder is the corporate non-government pension fund of the National Bank (98.5%), has invested about UAH 52 million in the construction of a pig farm and a meat processing plant in Kyiv region.

“PJSC SvizhachOK has invested about UAH 52 million in the construction of a pig farm and a meat factory in the village of Velyka Dymerka in Brovary district of Kyiv region,” reads a press release from the Ukrainian Credit Rating Agency (UCRA).

According to the report, SvizhachOK is also funding the construction of an elevator with a capacity of 15,000 tonnes.

PJSC SvizhachOK was founded in 2010 by reorganizing Zhytlobudinvest 2008 LLC. Its cattle complex breeds about 550 pigs per month. Its main customers are meat processing enterprises in Poltava, Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Donetsk regions.

BRUSSELS. May 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine and Georgia have expressed their desire to achieve a visa-free regime with the EU at the Eastern Partnership summit in Riga on May 21-22, European Commission spokesperson Natasha Berto said at a briefing in Brussels on Friday.