The Danish company Grundfos Holding A/S has provided 120 sets of pumping equipment for the municipal enterprises “Water of Donbass” and “Donetskteplocomunenergo”, which will improve the operation of critical infrastructure of life support systems, said Vadym Filashkin, Chairman of the Regional State Administration of Water Supply.
“The regional utility companies Voda Donbassa and Donetskteplokomunenergo will modernize and re-equip important facilities with the support of Grundfos Holding A/S from Denmark, which provided 120 sets of pumping equipment,” he said in his telegram channel.
According to the head of the UWA, the pumps will help improve the critical infrastructure of life support systems, which is especially important for the provision of utilities in the current environment, as well as in preparation for the new heating season.
Filashkin expressed his gratitude to international partners for their continued support.
In Ukraine there is a significant decrease in selling prices for sugar, which are 26.5-27.5 UAH/kg, which is caused not so much by the growth of sugar reserves in the country, but by difficulties with exports, said the analytical cooperative “Pusk”, established within the framework of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Rada (VAR).
“In August, Ukraine exported only 3-4,000 tons of sugar, which is critically low compared to the 100,000 tons exported two months ago. The Ukrainian sugar market is facing difficulties as we are now fully focused on domestic consumer demand,” analysts said.
Experts expect further increase in sugar stocks in Ukraine as domestic production will grow. Against the background of closed exports to Europe, Ukrainian producers need to look for new markets, they advise.
“In the new season, Europe will also increase sugar production, which will complicate the realization of Ukrainian products internationally. Objectively, by January 2025, Ukraine will have to either pay high export duties or wait for the zeroing of quotas,” Pusk stated and added that prices will be low in the new season.
Polish fashion brand Sinsay, owned by the large retail group LPP, plans to open five new stores in Ukraine by the end of the summer.
According to the retailer’s website, the store in Tyachiv (Zakarpattia region) is scheduled to open on August 19, in Yuzhnoukrainsk (Mykolaiv region) – on August 22, in Kryvyi Rih, Zhytomyr and Poltava – on August 23.
As reported, the Polish group LPP, which owns the brands Reserved, Sinsay and others, plans to double the number of its stores in the next three years, betting on the budget brand Sinsay and the overall growth of the company’s sales. There are plans to reach 4755 stores by the end of 2026, of which 3248 are Sinsay stores.
The group has more than 140 stores in Ukraine.
At the end of 2023, the group’s sales increased by 9.3% to PLN 17.41 billion, while net profit increased by 85.5% to PLN 1.61 billion.
Philip Morris International (PMI) in January-June 2024 increased tax deductions to budgets of different levels by 33.5%, or UAH 6 billion, compared to the same period of 2023 – up to UAH 23.9 billion, the company said in a press release on Wednesday.
“Important factors for the increase in tax deductions were the recovery of the company’s share in the Ukrainian market, as well as the launch of a new factory, in which the company invested $30 million,” PMI Ukraine CFO Sergiy Kalnoochenko is quoted in the release.
It is specified that excise tax accounted for UAH 12 bln, VAT – UAH 3.2 bln.
Last year PMI reported on payment of 30.3 billion UAH of taxes in Ukraine.
Kralnoochenko added that the growth of tax payments was also facilitated by the increase in the legal tobacco market, which became possible due to the active struggle of state authorities with illegal producers.
According to him, Philip Morris will continue to invest in the development of its own business, as a result of which in August 2024 it plans to pay to the budget more than 3.5 billion hryvnias of excise tax alone as part of direct production at the newly opened factory in Lviv region and its own imports, as well as under a local contract for contract manufacturing.
Philip Morris was spun off from Altria in 2008 and is among the world’s largest tobacco manufacturers, declaring the goal of full transition to smokeless products in the future.
PMI has been operating in the Ukrainian market since 1994, and during this time its declared investments have exceeded $750 million. The company has suspended operations at its factory in Kharkiv region since February 24, 2022 due to Russian aggression and was forced to switch to importing products from eight PMI factories outside the country and a temporary partnership with another international manufacturer in Ukraine. In May this year, the company officially launched a new factory in Lviv region with an announced investment of $30 million.
PMI cut shipments in the Ukrainian market by 30.1% to 11.07 billion cigarettes and tobacco sticks in 2022 due to the war, but it managed to increase finished goods shipments by 8.4% in 2023, including a 14.9% increase in the fourth quarter. Last October, the company said its share of the Ukrainian market had recovered to 24% after dropping to 14% from 28.5% in the first months after the Russian Federation invasion.
Ukrainian banks in January-June this year increased net profit by UAH 11.4 billion, or 16.8% compared to the figure for the same period of 2023 – up to UAH 79.04 billion, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said.
“The main drivers of profitability are maintaining a high net interest margin and almost zero allocations to provisions for losses from active operations,” the NBU explained the reasons for the profitability growth.
“In the first half of the year, only seven small banks out of 62 solvent banks were unprofitable with an aggregate loss of UAH 171 million,” informed the National Bank.
According to his data, the profitability of the main assets of banks during the second quarter further declined. In particular, it was falling fastest for NBU certificates of deposit, in connection with which banks reduced the volume of investments in these securities, the regulator said.
At the same time, rates on domestic government loan bonds (OVGZ) also went down, but the volume of investments in them grew.
“It was due to the increase in assets that banks maintained a sufficiently high net interest margin and increased income,” the regulator emphasized.
It is noted that the return on equity of banks for the first half of 2024 amounted to 48.4%, which is lower than the same indicator of the first half of 2023, which amounted to 56%.
The volume of income tax accrued by banks for the first six months of this year amounted to UAH 21.9 billion compared to UAH 12.4 billion for the comparable period last year, as the income tax rate was increased from 18% to 25%.
According to the NBU, last year the net profit of the banking system amounted to UAH 82.8 bln after accruing UAH 76.2 bln of profit tax at the increased rate of 50%.
CRH Ukraine B.V. (Netherlands) has announced its intention to acquire a 99.9775% stake in the authorized capital of Dickerhoff Cement Ukraine PJSC, which owns two cement plants in Rivne and Mykolayiv regions.
The corresponding message the company posted in the information disclosure system of the National Commission for Securities and Stock Market (NCSSM) on August 12.
It is indicated that CRH Ukraine B.V. intends to purchase 158 million 311 thousand 865 common registered shares, which is 99.9775% of the authorized capital of PJSC. At the same time CRH and its affiliates do not own shares of “Dickerhoff Cement Ukraine” as of the date of the message.
As reported, in July 2024, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) authorized CRH group to acquire the assets of Dickerhoff Cement Ukraine. At the same time, the condition of concentration is the transfer of 25-28% of shares of PJSC with the right of veto to an independent investor within nine months from the date of the purchase.
It is expected that such investor will be the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), since in December 2023 CRH signed a mandate letter with it regarding the joint acquisition of assets of the Italian company Buzzi in Ukraine.
In addition, CRH will be obliged to report regularly for five years to the AMCU, in particular on the volume of production and selling prices on the domestic market.
As reported, in June 2023, the Italian cement manufacturer Buzzi, listed by the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption as an international sponsor of war, through its subsidiary Dyckerhoff GmbH reached an agreement to sell part of its business in Eastern Europe to the Irish group CRH, including Ukrainian assets in the form of two cement plants – Volyn Cement (Zdolbunov, Rivne region) and Yugcement (Olshanske, Mykolayiv region).
AMCU considered CRH’s application for concentration from September 2023.
CRH has been operating in Ukraine since 1999. Since November 2021, its cement enterprises in Ukraine have been operating under the Cemark brand: Podolsk Cement JSC (Khmelnytskyi oblast), Cement LLC (Odessa) and Mykolaivcement PJSC (Lviv oblast).
A separate line of CRH business in Ukraine is production of concrete and reinforced concrete products. PoliBeton Energo’s Bila Tserkva Reinforced Concrete Plant is a specialized enterprise that produces supports for power transmission lines. PoliBeton’s concrete unit in the north of Odessa joined CRH in 2020.
Since 1999, the company has invested about $500 million in Ukraine. In particular, since the start of the full-scale invasion, CRH has invested $80 million, including $34 million in the construction of a cement terminal in the Kiev region.
CRH is the leading producer of construction materials in the world. The company employs about 71 thousand people at 3200 enterprises in 28 countries. It is the largest producer of construction materials in North America and Europe. The company is also present in Asia. American depositary shares of CRH are listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
