Business news from Ukraine

Business news from Ukraine

State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” earned UAH 11.1 bln in six months

In January-June 2024, the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” earned UAH 11.14 billion, which is significantly more than in the same period in 2023, said the company’s CEO Yuriy Bolokhovets.
“The absence of in-house processing is fully compensated by a 15% increase in sales of unprocessed wood,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
Bolokhovets also noted that the state-owned enterprise has also lost significant subsidized assets, which the State Property Fund sells through Prozorro. Keeping non-core assets for years only drained the company’s funds, he explained.
“As a result, we expect a significant increase in the company’s profits. It’s too early to talk about specific figures, but it’s hundreds of millions of hryvnias more than last year,” the CEO emphasized.
Such decisions allowed the company to increase salaries of lower-level employees – forest masters and assistant foresters – and to increase social guarantees for demobilized employees, of which the company has more than 500.
In addition, the state-owned enterprise was able to raise prices for contractors and increase spending on the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“The reform has changed everything. The State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” has moved to a model of market wages and transparent conditions for organizing production,” summarized its CEO.
According to the Opendabot service, the total profit of the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” in 2023 amounted to UAH 2.8 billion.
As reported, Ukraine launched a forestry reform in 2016. As part of it, the sale of raw wood at electronic auctions has already been introduced. Since 2021, an interactive map of wood processing facilities has been operating in a test mode in a number of regions.
The industry has implemented the Forest in a Smartphone project, which contains a list of logging tickets for timber harvesting and allows you to check the legality of logging on the agency’s online map.
On June 1, 2023, Ukraine launched a pilot of electronic issuance of logging tickets and certificates of origin of timber. In addition, the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” has launched a pilot project to procure timber harvesting services through the electronic platform Prozorro.

“Ukrzaliznytsia” transported 35.1 mln tons of grain cargo

In the marketing year 2023-2024 (MY, June-July), Ukrzaliznytsia JSC (UZ) transported 35.122 million tons of grain cargo, the best figure in the last four years, said Valery Tkachev, Deputy Director of Transportation Technology and Commercial Work Department of UZ, at a meeting with agricultural market participants on Thursday.
According to him, in June, 3.48 million tons of grain were transported by rail in all directions, a third more than in the same month of 2023.
In the first six months of this year, UZ transported 21.85 million tons of grain, which is 30% more than in the same period last year.
At the same time, 2.558 million tons of grain were transported in export traffic in June, and 18.731 million tons in six months, which is 43% more than a year earlier.
Export volumes of oil and oilcake and meals also increased. Thus, in January-June 2014, 954 thousand tons of vegetable oil were transported by rail, which is 30% more than last year. During the same period, the transportation of oilcake and meal increased by 19% to 1.41 million tons, Tkachev summarized.

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Number of unemployed people registered in public employment service as of 30.04.2024 (in thousands)

Number of unemployed people registered in public employment service as of 30.04.2024 (in thousands)

Source: Open4Business.com.ua and experts.news

“Agrotrade” has started threshing winter rapeseed on 11 thou hectares

Agrotrade agricultural holding has started threshing winter rapeseed on 11 thou hectares in the 2024 season, the company’s press service reported on Facebook on Wednesday.
“We started harvesting this year as planned. The weather is favorable for us. Short-term rains in the Kharkiv region did not significantly interfere with the harvest, and the grain moisture content is at a basic level. We took care of the necessary resources and equipment in advance, so we have everything we need,” said Oleksandr Ovsyanyk, Director of the holding’s Agricultural Department.
According to the report, rapeseed threshing is already underway in Kharkiv and Chernihiv regions. Soon, the harvesting of this crop will begin in Sumy region. In total, it will last about three weeks.
The Agrotrade Group is a vertically integrated holding company with a full agro-industrial cycle (production, processing, storage and trade of agricultural products). It cultivates over 70 thousand hectares of land in Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava and Kharkiv regions. Its main crops are sunflower, corn, winter wheat, soybeans and rapeseed. It has its own network of elevators with a simultaneous storage capacity of 570 thousand tons.
The group also produces hybrid seeds of corn and sunflower, barley, and winter wheat. In 2014, a seed plant with a capacity of 20 thousand tons of seeds per year was built on the basis of Kolos seed farm (Kharkiv region). In 2018, Agrotrade launched its own brand Agroseeds on the market.
Vsevolod Kozhemiako is the founder and CEO of Agrotrade.

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British government will support Ukraine – new British prime minister Starmer

The British government will stand by Ukraine, the country’s new prime minister Keir Starmer pledged on Saturday.

“I will emphasize, as I did yesterday when I spoke to Ukraine’s president Zelensky, that we will stand with our allies to support his country,” he said, referring to next week’s NATO summit in Washington.

According to The Guardian, Starmer said he has already had a number of phone calls with foreign leaders to “establish relationships and have important discussions about Ukraine and other key topics.”

Starmer is the head of the election-winning Labor Party. He took over as head of government on Friday and the new British cabinet held its first meeting on Saturday.

 

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Knauf to buy plot of land in Kyiv

The Kyiv City Council has decided to sell a 0.33-hectare land plot at 8 Harmatna Street in the Solomianskyi district of the capital to Knauf Gypsum Kyiv LLC for the operation and maintenance of the company’s transport shop.

The corresponding draft decision was supported by 77 deputies at the meeting on July 4.

As stated in the draft decision, Knauf Gypsum Kyiv has already paid an advance of UAH 1.4 million under the agreement of August 14, 2023.

At the same time, the balance of the price is UAH 11.9 million, which the company must pay within 10 days after the notarization of the sale and purchase agreement.

According to Opendatabot, Knauf Gypsum Kyiv LLC is owned by the German company Knauf International GmbH (100%).

Knauf is a leading global manufacturer of gypsum and building materials. In Ukraine, the company is represented by two plants for the production of gypsum boards.

As reported, in November 2023, the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) included German Knauf in the list of international sponsors of war, which has now been canceled.