Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intends to visit Russian Federation next week and meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the renewal of the Black Sea grain agreement, Bloomberg wrote Monday, citing information from two Turkish officials familiar with the matter.
“Erdogan may travel to Russia on Sept. 8 before heading to India to attend the G-20 summit in New Delhi, the interlocutors said. The Turkish presidential administration declined to comment to Bloomberg,” the report said.
State-owned Oschadbank has canceled the 1% conversion fee on transactions with its cards abroad, the bank’s CEO Sergey Naumov said.
“It has become even more favorable to use our payment means in other countries,” he wrote in Telegram.
Naumov added that the bank also automatically extended until December 31 the validity of cards that were to expire after February 2022, including cards for internally displaced persons.
“These cards are fully functional: you can pay with them in the trade and service network, withdraw cash from them at ATMs and the like,” – specified the head of the Board.
The previous time Oschadbank extended the validity of cards for three months at the end of May.
As indicated by the National Bank in the report for 2022, the leaders in Ukraine in the issuance of payment cards are state-owned PrivatBank and Oschadbank – respectively 43.8% and 15.4%, as well as Universal Bank (mono) – 13.2%.
In general, according to the NBU data, in 2022 the total number of issued payment cards in Ukraine increased by 23.2% – from 89.1 million pcs to 109.8 million pcs, while a year earlier – by 21.3%.
At the same time, the total number of active bank cards, after reaching a historic high of 47.2m units at the end of March this year, decreased by 0.6m units, or 1.3%, to 46.6m units in April-June, according to the National Bank.
Benchmark oil prices are slightly rising on Monday morning. Last Friday, quotes rose, but ended in the red for the second week in a row.
The price of October futures for Brent on the London ICE Futures exchange at 8:19 a.m. is $84.53 per barrel, which is 5 cents (0.06%) higher than at the close of the previous session. Last Friday, these contracts rose by $1.12 (1.3%) to $84.48 per barrel.
Quotes for WTI futures for October in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) by this time increased by 11 cents (0.14%) to $79.94 per barrel. At the end of the previous session, they rose by $0.78 (1%) to $79.83 per barrel.
Last week, Brent fell by 0.4% and WTI by 1%.
Oil market participants are evaluating the speech of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. According to him, the Fed is not done fighting high inflation and may raise interest rates again if necessary.
“We stand ready to raise rates even higher if necessary, and we intend to maintain a restrictive monetary policy until we have confidence that inflation is moving steadily downward toward our target,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Chinese authorities have announced new measures to support the economy, which relate to the housing market and the stock market.
“The news of further stimulus in China has provided additional support,” said Warren Patterson of ING Groep NV. – “However, prices are likely to remain in a certain range in the short term, given the continuing concerns about shrinking demand and rising supply.
Meanwhile, data from the oilfield services company Baker Hughes showed that over the past week, the number of operating oil rigs in the United States decreased by 8 units to 512, which is the lowest since February 2022.
Krivoy Rog Iron Ore Mining Company (KZHRK) in January-July of this year decreased production of commercial iron ore from underground mining by 29.7% compared to the same period last year – to 1,430 thousand tons.
According to the company, in July the mine “Pokrovska” produced 70 thousand tons of ore, “Krivoy Rog” – 75 thousand tons, “Kozatska” – 40 thousand tons and “Ternivska” 40 thousand tons, as a whole for the combine in July – 225 thousand tons.
As reported, KZHRK in 2022 reduced production of commercial iron ore from underground mining by 32.8% year-on-year to 2.888 million tons.
KZhRK specializes in underground iron ore mining. KZHRK has four mines: “Pokrovskaya” (formerly “Oktyabrskaya”), “Krivorozhskaya” mine (“Rodina”), “Kozatska” (formerly “Gvardeyskaya”) and “Ternovskaya” (formerly Ordzhonikidze ore mine, then named after Lenin).
Starmill Limited owns 99.88% of shares of the combine.
Earlier it was reported that SCM Group owns a certain stake in KZhRK, while Metinvest Group has nothing to do with KZhRK. At the same time, SCM Group is only an investor, while Privat Group has operational control over the plant.
The Hungarian government will protect farmers and, if necessary, close the border to some grain products coming from Ukraine from September 16, Hungarian Agriculture Minister Istvan Nagy told the Transit political festival in Tihany.
“If the EU does not extend the import ban on some Ukrainian grain products, which expires on September 15, Hungary will impose an import ban not only on four products, but on all 24 previous products in order to protect the domestic market,” the Hungarian publication agrarszektor.hu quoted the minister as saying.
According to him, Hungary’s agriculture has experienced one shock after another in recent years. The coronavirus epidemic, drought, the war raging in the neighborhood and its consequences, the energy crisis, and the fact that cheap Ukrainian agricultural products have flooded the European market duty-free are all difficulties for producers, he said.
“Although the harvest is better – a near-record amount of corn is expected this year – sales are facing difficulties due to cheap competition,” Nagy added.
As reported, Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telusz said after a meeting of a coalition of five frontline countries in Poland on Friday that the position of Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania on the need to extend restrictive measures against Ukrainian wheat, rapeseed, corn and sunflower remains unchanged – a ban until the end of 2023.
The European Commission on June 5 agreed to extend until September 15 the restrictions on wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower exports from Ukraine to Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. “The restrictions do not mean a ban on the transit of these goods through Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia,” the document signed by EC chief Ursula von der Leyen said.
Source: https://www.agrarszektor.hu/szabalyozas/20230827/nagy-istvan-fenntartjuk-a-behozatali-tilalmat-44906
Four out of nine water samples taken from the water supply system in the Polish town of Rzeszów (Podkarpackie Voivodeship) have been found to contain legionella bacteria, the causative agent of legionellosis, which is dangerous for immunocompromised people.
According to Polsat TV channel, specialists took these samples on August 18. A total of 105 samples are now being analyzed.
The first case of legionellosis was detected in Rzeszów on August 18, since then the infection was diagnosed in 144 people, 11 people died – these are patients aged 65 to 91 years old with a number of related diseases.
In addition to Rzeszów, infections were also reported from the Lubelskie, Małopolskie and Wielkopolskie voivodships.
Legionellosis, or “legionnaires’ disease,” is named after the first place of detection at the U.S. military base Fort Bragg. It is an acute infectious disease caused by various species of microorganisms belonging to the genus Legionella. As a rule, the disease runs with pronounced fever, general intoxication, damage to the lungs, central nervous system, digestive organs, and possible development of multiorgan failure syndrome.
