The BRICS member states have decided to invite Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE to join the organization, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday.
“We have decided to invite Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE to become full members of BRICS,” Ramaphosa said in a speech at the BRICS summit.
The membership of these countries will become official on January 1, 2024, the South African leader explained.
Norway has decided to transfer F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, TV2 TV channel reports citing data from several independent sources.
“Thus, Norway becomes the third NATO country after the Netherlands and Denmark to transfer F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine,” the report indicates.
It is noted that the Prime Minister of Norway Jonas Gahr Støre on Thursday, August 24, is on a visit to Kiev.
Finod LLC, which was engaged in currency exchange and recently lost all its licenses by the decision of the National Bank (NBU), was the largest financial company in Ukraine in terms of revenue – UAH 2 billion 115 million at the end of the first half of 2023.
According to data on the NBU website, in the first quarter the leader was payment system Novapay with UAH 1 billion 666 million in revenue, but its data is missing in the table for the half-year, while the table for the first quarter did not include Finod’s data.
The next three companies, as well as in the first quarter, were formed by microcredit providers Ukr Credit Finance LLC (CreditKasa TM), 1 Safe Agency for Necessary Loans LLC (MyCredit TM) and Investrum (ZeCredit, BananaCredit TM), whose revenue amounted from UAH 1.16 billion to UAH 0.86 billion.
At the same time, “Ukr Credit Finance” increased its revenue in the second quarter compared to the first quarter by almost 1.5 times, strengthening its position, while “1 Safe Credit Agency” by 28%, and FC “Investrum” – by 5%.
“Investrum” of the market leaders has the lowest labor costs – only UAH 10.8 mln, as well as close to zero profit.
Six more companies operating in the microcredit market, as well as the network of payment terminals of FC “Kontraktovy Dom” (TM “Easypay”) follow with rather close indicators of revenue – from UAH 651.6 mln to UAH 516.0 mln.
In particular, we are talking about LLC “Maniveo Fast Financial Assistance” (Moneyveo), which reported the highest salary expenses among competitors, FC “E Groshi Kom”, “Aventus Ukraine” (TM CreditPlus), , LLC “Miloan” – UAH 617.47 million and “Lineura Ukraine” (TM “Credit7”) and “Consumer Center” (TM “ShvidkoGroshi”).
The largest in terms of assets and profit in the first half of the year was state-owned PJSC Ukrfinzhytlo, capitalized at the end of last year at the expense of government bonds – UAH 55.5bn and UAH 3.3bn, respectively.
Metinvest Mining and Metallurgical Group has allocated almost UAH 4 billion to support the country and its citizens during the year and a half of full-scale war, including UAH 2 billion for the needs of the army as part of the Rinat Akhmetov Steel Front military initiative.
According to the company’s press release on Thursday, since the first day of the full-scale Russian invasion, the company has been a reliable support for the country in a very difficult time, strengthening the defense capabilities of the army, taking care of its employees and civilian Ukrainians, and supporting the economy.
Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of Metinvest, noted that the Group has been investing in the development of production and the welfare of Ukraine for all 17 years of its existence.
“With the outbreak of a full-scale war, we have faced another major challenge – to help the country defeat the enemy and preserve its sovereignty and independence. That is why for the past year and a half, the company’s enterprises have been not only witnessing but also actively participating in the struggle. We are working for the needs of the frontline, delivering humanitarian aid to the victims and, despite everything, continue to produce Ukrainian steel,” the top manager said, as quoted by the press service.
It is also stated that Metinvest’s enterprises in Ukraine are under constant threat of enemy shelling. The group’s assets in Mariupol and Avdiivka have been damaged by hostilities, while Mariupol is temporarily occupied. Since the outbreak of full-scale war, Metinvest’s operations have been negatively affected by logistical constraints, power outages, rising production costs and falling prices for certain products.
Despite all this, the Group’s enterprises operate at different levels of utilization, taking into account security, logistics, energy, economic and other factors.
Since the beginning of 2023, following the stabilization of power supply, the Group has been able to gradually increase the utilization of its iron ore assets in Kryvyi Rih to at least 30% of pre-war levels and maintain its focus on the production of pellets and products with a high iron content.
The restoration of power supply also ensured more stable operations and product mix flexibility at Kametstal, which operates two blast furnaces, and the joint venture Zaporizhstal, which operates three blast furnaces. BF No. 3 at Zaporizhstal resumed operations after being shut down in late spring. The overhaul helped improve the efficiency of the furnace and the entire blast furnace process.
Pokrovskoye Coal Group’s enterprises are operating at high utilization rates. Construction of the 11th coal mining unit is underway. In July, despite the military invasion, the Group successfully completed the modernization of the flotation department at Svyato-Varvarinskaya Concentrator, which had been in progress for four years.
Metinvest’s priority remains taking care of its employees who ensure the production process. All enterprises have bomb shelters equipped for long-term stay of people. The shelters have water, food and medicine.
Starting June 1, 2023, Metinvest introduced an additional bonus for employees of production and repair facilities in Ukraine, which can reach 25% of their salary or more depending on the performance of the employees.
The most important task for business in wartime is to work together with the whole country to win by paying taxes, supporting the army, the economy and taking care of people, the press release said. In the first half of 2023, Metinvest, including its associates and joint ventures, paid more than UAH 6.3 billion in taxes and fees to the budgets of all levels in Ukraine.
“Metinvest continues to fight the theft by the Russian Federation, which illegally exported more than 234,000 tons of the company’s steel products from Mariupol. In particular, 27 enterprises of the group have filed lawsuits with the European Court of Human Rights against the Russian Federation for damage to the group’s property in Mariupol and other territories of Ukraine since February 24, 2022,” the press release states.
Since the first day of the war, Metinvest has joined the Rinat Akhmetov Steel Front military initiative to protect the lives of Ukraine’s soldiers. The company has already allocated UAH 2 billion to support the Ukrainian army by purchasing bulletproof vests, vehicles, drones, thermal imagers and other equipment. The company has also organized the production of special mobile shelters, anti-tank hedgehogs and spiked chains against wheeled vehicles.
“Metinvest is a vertically integrated group of steel and mining companies. The Group’s enterprises are located primarily in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro regions.
The main shareholders of the holding are SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%), which jointly manage it.
Metinvest Holding LLC is the management company of Metinvest Group.
The National Bank of Ukraine’s net profit in the second quarter of this year amounted to UAH 17.59 billion, up 22.2% year-on-year, according to the NBU’s report on its website.
According to the report, net interest income almost halved to UAH 10.53 billion from UAH 20.70 billion, but UAH 7.69 billion of profit from transactions with financial instruments at fair value, compared to UAH 4.26 billion of loss in the second quarter of last year, improved the financial result overall.
In the first half of the year, the NBU’s net profit amounted to UAH 43.28 billion, down 37.9% compared to the first half of last year, when this result was largely due to UAH 48.82 billion of profit from operations with financial assets and liabilities in foreign currency and gold, compared to UAH 7.74 billion in the first half of this year.
According to the NBU, its consolidated assets increased by 17.1% to UAH 2.293 trillion in January-June this year. “The change in the volume of assets is primarily the result of a 37% increase in international reserves – to $39.0 billion at the end of the first half of 2023 from $28.5 billion at the end of 2022,” the central bank explained.
He specified that the volume of non-resident securities in its portfolio in the first half of 2023 increased by 23% to UAH 858.5 billion, and the volume of funds and deposits in foreign currency and precious metals almost doubled to UAH 464.4 billion.
At the same time, the lion’s share – almost 98% – of non-resident securities is denominated in US dollars, including 92.8% of US issuers, while at the beginning of the year these figures were 95.3% and 84.0%, respectively.
During the reporting period, the NBU, in particular, got rid of securities denominated in euros, which amounted to 1.5% of the portfolio at the beginning of the year.
At the same time, the NBU notes that the volume of its loan portfolio decreased by 4.7 times to UAH 8.6 billion due to the repayment of long-term debt on operating loans by banks.
As of the end of the first half of 2023, the NBU’s liabilities amounted to UAH 1.921 trillion (83.8% of assets), up 17.8% over the half-year.
In particular, banks’ funds increased by 2.3 times to UAH 203.8 billion, funds of state and other institutions increased almost sixfold to UAH 311 billion, while liabilities on loans received from the IMF decreased by 21.5%, and in August the NBU repaid another SDR98.5 million.
As a result, the NBU’s equity increased by 13% to UAH 371 billion in the first half of 2023, due to the accumulation of this year’s profit.
The NBU indicated that its expenses related to the production of banknotes, coins and other products, administrative expenses, and staff costs in the first half of 2023 remained at the same level as in the corresponding period of 2022 and amounted to UAH 3 billion.
In particular, staff salaries decreased by 7.7% year-on-year to UAH 1.227 billion in the first half of this year, including an 8.9% decrease to UAH 612 million in the second quarter.
At the same time, payments to the management increased by 11.1% to UAH 36.01 million, including 10.5% to UAH 13.54 million for members of the NBU Council.
Despite a 20% reduction in crop production areas due to the occupation of a number of regions, favorable weather conditions will allow farmers to harvest and export wheat in the 2023/24 marketing year (MY) no less than last season, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mykola Solsky said on the air of the United News marathon.
“The carry-over stocks of crops in 2023 are about five times less than in the 2022 season, when there were 27 million tons of agricultural products in the country as of mid-summer. On average, agriculture has been bringing in about USD2 billion a month to the state budget since the grain corridor started working properly,” he said.
Assessing the prospects for the 2023 harvest, the Minister noted that this season, 20% less production area has been allocated for crops than in pre-war 2021, due to the areas in Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and the south of the country that are currently under occupation. He also clarified that during the fall 2022 sowing campaign, winter crops were sown 25% less than in 2021.
“Thanks to the weather, we got a significantly higher yield on these areas. It was not a harsh winter, there were no sharp temperature drops, and there was enough humidity, which led to the increase in yield. It was difficult for farmers to save on seeds, herbicides, and fertilizers. But one factor compensated for the other,” explained Solsky.
Speaking about this season’s spring crop harvest, the Minister emphasized that a combination of natural and climatic factors, including a wet summer and average temperatures, affected the quality of grain, which will be worse than last season.
“We have less milling wheat and more feed wheat. But this is a standard situation for Ukraine, when the season depends primarily on weather conditions,” said the head of the agriculture ministry.
According to him, the tonnage of wheat for export to Ukraine in 2023/24 MY will be not less than last season.
Assessing the readiness of the agricultural business for the autumn-winter period, Solsky reminded that since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has been receiving many donor programs, some of which were implemented through the Ministry of Agrarian Policy. Therefore, the supply of generators, in particular, is many times higher than at the beginning of winter last year.
According to the Minister, gas will be the main challenge for business in the autumn and winter period. A positive factor was its low cost in 2022/23 MY, which was several times lower than before the war. However, in the last few weeks, the price has risen, which will affect the operation of elevators, Solsky explained. However, this factor, in his opinion, will also depend on the weather and the skill of entrepreneurs.
“When we talk about grains, the demand for gas (for the agricultural sector) will depend on the conditions under which corn will be harvested. It will be a wet autumn or not,” the minister said, adding that many farmers are now actively advancing and buying gas.
He stated that there are no gas subsidies for business, as the priority is to provide gas to the population. However, the situation will become clearer in late October and early November, and the agricultural market is preparing for it.
