KYIV. Nov 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – GLD Invest Group development company (Austria) is planning to focus on investing in agriculture in Ukraine instead of investing in real estate, according to managing partner of the company Lehr Clemens.
“We are interested in the agricultural business in Ukraine and the best of what is in Ukraine – agricultural land,” he said at the Eastern Europe and Asia Real Estate Forum n Kyiv.
According to him, GLD Invest Group remains somewhat interested in the real estate market. Until 2008, together with its financial partners, it has invested about $100 million in Ukraine.
“But the trouble is that external investors are more interested in the agricultural market, since it is export-oriented, unlike real estate,” the expert said.
He noted that foreign exchange fluctuations and the subsequent decline in rent rates for commercial premises in Ukraine had a significant influence on the investors’ choice in favoring other markets instead of real estate.
“Right now the rate is UAH 25 per $1, and it was UAH 8/$1. I do not know what the rate will be in a year or two. It is difficult to count,” Clemens said.
GLD Invest Group is an Austrian real estate development company headquartered in Kilb. It designs, builds and leases commercial real estate in Central and Eastern Europe.
Its representative offices are located in Vienna, Budapest (Hungary) and Kyiv.
KYIV. Nov 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Over the past 18 months the Kyiv authorities have realized investment projects worth over UAH 2 billion, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has said.
“In the past 18 months we’ve raised over UAH 2 billion in investment. This is a small figure by ear, but this is a large figure given the current situation,” he said at the opening of the Eastern Europe and Asia Real Estate Forum in Kyiv on Thursday.
Klitschko called on potential investors to invest funds in Kyiv’s property market, as the conditions are perfect given the narrowing market.
“We’ve made very good steps against corruption and we’ve destroyed a lot of points of corruption,” he said, but he conceded that corruption still exists.
Klitschko said that as a part of the ongoing fight against corruption, the Kyiv authorities have introduced the open management process and made the operation of the budget commission and the formation of the Kyiv’s budget public.
“I want to say to each investor: if someone tries to use your business for corruption, I’m open for you 24 hours a day, and thus you can use me as a bodyguard for your business,” he said.
KYIV. Nov 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Kherson Shipyard, part of the Smart Maritime Group (SMG), will build an oil garbage disposal vessel under the order of the Yuzhny branch of the Sea Port Authority of Ukraine (authority of the Yuzhny seaport, Odesa region).
The press service of SMG reported that the contract to build the ship, worth UAH 99.6 million, was signed in Kherson on November 24.
“Earlier, the shipyard won a tender of the Yuzhny branch of the Sea Port Authority. The offer of SMG was declared the best both in the cost and the terms,” the press service said.
The oil garbage disposal vessel can also be used as a ship handling tug and can be used to fight fires on vessels and at ports. The Ice 2 class will allow the vessel to operate in the winter, the press service said.
“We believe that this contract is one more chance to show the high level of qualification of our shipbuilders… I’m sure that we would not quit on the contractors,” SMG CEO Vasyl Fedin said.
Smart Maritime Group is the largest shipbuilding holding of Ukraine. It was founded in 2009 to manage marine assets of Smart-Holding of businessmen Vadim Novinsky. It includes Chornomorsky Shipbuilding Yard (Mykolaiv) and Kherson Shipyard.
centers with its UMTS (3G) standard network by the end of 2015, CEO Oleh Prozhyvalsky told reporters on Wednesday.
At present, the operator’s network has been launched in three regional centers – Odesa, Chernivtsi and Uzhgorod.
Prozhyvalsky said that by the end of the year the network will appear in Kyiv, Lviv (December 7), Dnipropetrovsk (December 15), Khmelnytsky (December 24), Ternopil (December 24), Sumy (December 10), Poltava (December 9), Ivano-Frankivsk (December 11), Rivne (December 23), Vinnytsia (December 24), Kherson (December 11), Chernihiv (November 30), Kirovohrad (December 14), Lutsk (November 30) and Mykolaiv (December 8).
Vodafone Ukraine Technical Director Andriy Tereschuk said that the 3G network in Kyiv will be launched using the cluster principle (district by district) in five stages. The first stage will start at night on November 26 in the Solomiansky district. The next stages will be on December 4, December 15, December 25 and December 30.
KYIV. Nov 26 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Public joint-stock company Sumy Machine-Building Science and Production Association (Sumy NPO) has signed a contract to produce compressor units for a gas booster station being built at the Sharkiy Berdakh oil and gas field in Uzbekistan, according to a company press release.
Sumy engineers will design and produce three sets of compressor units, including high and low pressure casing, with associated equipment. The contract also includes the delivery of six additional sets of detachable rotor bundles.
“The project is very limited in time. Shipment should be carried out in spring of 2016, after which the company’s specialists will fulfill assembly and start-up works of the contractual equipment,” sales department head for Central Asia and the CIS countries Oleksandr Shevtsov said.
Sumy NPO has a long history of cooperation with Uzbekistan. In particular, Sumy NPO branded products are successfully operating at booster compressor stations located on the Pamuk, Zevardy, Kokdumalak and Gazly fields, as well as at the Akhangaran, Shakhpakhty, and Navoi thermal power plant compressor stations, and at many other facilities.
Sumy Machine-Building Science and Production Association is one of the biggest producers in Europe of gas re-pumping units and outfitted compressor stations for various uses: centrifugal, vacuum, and chemical pumps, and centrifuges and other equipment for the chemicals gas and oil-refining industries.
KYIV. Nov 26 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Ukrainian parliament plans to create a state agency for exports support (export-credit agency).
A total of 256 lawmakers passed bill No. 2142a at first reading.
One of the authors of the bill, Viktor Halasiuk (Oleh Liashko’s Radical Party) said that the bill will introduce insurance, guarantees and cheapening of exports crediting. The bill is in line with the directives of the European Union and the World Trade Organization, he said.
Deputy Ukrainian Economic Development and Trade Minister and Trade Representative Natalia Mykolska previously said that the concept on the export-credit agency will be drawn up by the end of October.
She said that Ukreximbank (Kyiv) will finance export-import transactions, while Export-Credit Agency will insure non-banking risks.
After completing the concept, the government would also submit the relevant law on the export-credit agency to the parliament.
