Business news from Ukraine

KYIV. Feb 24 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The governmental office for European integration has drawn up and published a report on the implementation of the Ukraine-EU Association agenda for 2015.

The report consists of several sections. The report is based on the data presented by power authorities that are involved in the implementation of the relevant tasks.

The report is intended to inform Ukrainian citizens, representatives of NGOs and international society, including EU institutions and EU member states on the progress of Ukraine in the implementation of the goals of the political association and economic integration into the EU.

The report covers the period from January 2015 to October 2015. It contains information on the attraction of international technical assistance to implement the tasks in the European integration area and gives examples of the use of the assistance.

The report has the results of the key measures aimed at introducing the Ukraine-EU Association agenda, including on the bills registered in the Ukrainian parliament.

The section contains information on the realization of top-priorities of the Association agenda in part of the Constitutional reform, election reform, the reform to prevent and fight corruption, deregulation, public procurement reform, tax reform, including VAT refunding, independent audit and reformation of the energy sector.

Source: State Statistics Services

Source: State Statistics Services

Source: State Statistics Services

Source: State Statistics Services

¹ Excluding the temporarily occupied territories of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol and part of the anti-terrorist operation zone.

² Data can be corrected.

KYIV. Feb 23 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The volume of orders placed by Pivdenne Design Bureau in 2015 at Pivdenmash (both based in Dnipropetrovsk) is estimated at over UAH 430 million, managers of the bureau have told Interfax-Ukraine.

“As part of the joint plan on stabilization of the Pivdenmash’s economy in the conditions of the abruption of traditional cooperation with Russia, in 2015 and January-February 2016 Pivdenne Design Bureau placed orders at Pivdenmash and financed works worth almost UAH 480 million. Only from July as of today Pivdenmash was financed by the bureau by over UAH 220 million as part of the order to fulfill works of a good commercial potential,” Head of the working group for financial and economic issues at the bureau Oleksandr Kamyshov said.

He expressed optimism over the positive trends in loading of Pivdenmash in the near future.

Kamyshov pointed at the contract being prepared with U.S. Orbital ATK under the Antares missile carrier project and the order to supply engines for European Vega missile carrier that has been signed.

“Negotiations with potential customers to design and produce new liquid missile engines of various classes to place the orders at Pivdenmash are being held,” he said.

Kamyshov is optimistic about the prospects of resuming production of Zenit missile carrier under the Sea Launch project.

He said that it is planned that in 2016 Pivdenmash will be able to return to the four-day working week and in 2017 – the five-day working week.

In Q1 2016 it is planned to fully pay wage arrears being around UAH 95 million now, he said.

KYIV. Feb 23 (Interfax-Ukraine) – State Enterprise Antonov (Kyiv) and Saudi Arabia’s Taqnia have signed an agreement of cooperation in organization of production of new An-32 multipurpose aircraft with a carrying capacity of 9.2 tonnes in Saudi Arabia, the press service of Antonov reported on Monday.

The signing ceremony was held at AFED−2016 being held on February 21 through February 28 in Riyadh in the presence of Mohammed Al−Ayish, Assistant Secretary of Defense of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, His Highness Prince Turki bin Saud Mohammed A.Al−Saud and other officials of Saudi Arabia.

This agreement sets certain plans as for delivery, organization of operation, after-sale support of Antonov aircraft of the An−132, An−148 families and An−178. It also concerns further joint works on organization of cooperative production of the An−132 in Saudi Arabia.

“It is very important event in our cooperation with partners from Saudi Arabia. Today we made the certain step in our relations based on the preliminary agreements. This document could be considered as the roadmap for our interaction by joint programmes,” Antonov President Mykhailo Hvozdov said.

KYIV. Feb 23 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Reproductive medicine is one of the most popular directions in the development of inbound medical tourism, President of the Inbound Medical Tourism Club in Ukraine inUkraine Yulia Khomych said at a press conference on Monday.

“The most promising direction of inbound medical tourism is reproductive medicine, in particular, assisted reproduction. This is linked to the fact that our legislative base allows sex selection and the usage of surrogate maternity. In many countries these services are not available,” Khomych said.

She said that dentology, bio and cell solutions, ophthalmology, rehabilitation, cardiovascular surgery and partially oncology are of large demand for treatment in Ukraine.

Khomych said that patients from the CIS are most interested in receiving medical services, as confidence in medical specialists of the post-Soviet space remains in these regions.

“First we’re interesting for neighbor countries that know us, as they have large confidence in our doctors. The absence of the language barrier is added. In addition, Arab countries where demand on reproductive medicine is high, as well as in western countries where patients have difficulties to receive medical services under insurance policies,” she said.

A representative of the Dobrobut medical network Kateryna Hrytsenko said that today there is no platform that would promote medical services of the country abroad, and all projects mainly send Ukrainian patients abroad.

“We could do everything that Europe can do, and they know a little about us,” she said.

The inUkraine club develops inbound medical tourism in Ukraine.

KYIV. Feb 23 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The restructuring of enterprises in the aerospace sector of Ukraine aims at creating new samples of missile equipment, taking into account current top-priorities of the state, Head of the State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU) Liubomyr Sabadosh has said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

Assessing the approaches and tasks of the reforms that will start this year, taking Dnipropetrovsk-based Pivdenne Design Bureau and Pivdenmash being prepared for the restructuring, he said that general approaches of the SSAU to the restructuring of the enterprises could be presented in the following way: innovation development via corporatization with the retaining of 100% of shares in state ownership.

Sabadosh said that as part of the preparation for the structural reforms, the SSAU has drawn up the concept for reforming the sector until 2020 and the draft bill on the specifics of corporatization of the SSAU’s enterprises, being agreed by the agencies now.

“I would say that among advantages of the joint-stock company is the transparent financial and economic policy, public disclosure of the financial report and the improvement of the management structure,” he said.

“One of the tasks of the structural reforms is the increase of the prestige of the rocket science profession and the attraction of engineers and designers of rockets,” he said.

“The clear distribution of functional duties would allow focus on the realization of strategic sector development measures,” he said.