USAID will work with the U.S. Congress to invest an additional $230 million of new resources in Ukrainian businesses, particularly to help businesses comply with European Union regulations and export more goods and services to Europe, USAID Chief Samantha Power said.
“USAID will work with the U.S. Congress to invest $230 million of new resources in Ukrainian businesses. This will include everything from technical assistance to businesses that want to scale and expand, technical assistance to help them comply with EU regulations so they can export more of their products and services to Europe and create more jobs for more Ukrainians,” she said at a briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.
At the same time, she emphasized that businesses cannot grow unless they are provided with affordable capital. Power noted that many financial institutions consider investments in Ukrainian businesses too risky.
“So we are going to expand the use of instruments such as low-interest loans or grants for businesses, first-loss guarantees that will reduce the risk of investing in Ukraine. And we’re going to work together to attract more investment and more private sector participation here in Ukraine, which again is an investment in the resilience of today and also in the economy of tomorrow,” she said.
As Power noted, this new commitment is “just one of many that the United States has made to the Ukrainian people this week.”
The national humanitarian aid agency Zdorovi has received the status of a critically important charity organization.
As the Interfax-Ukraine agency was informed in Zdorovi, the status was confirmed by the corresponding official letter of the Ministry of Health.
In 2022, the Zdorovi Charitable Foundation created a humanitarian association of more than 65 international organizations and attracted UAH 1.68 billion as part of the project of critical humanitarian response for the medical industry Help Ukraine.
In the first half of 2023, Zdorovi transferred aid to 462 medical facilities in all regions of the country, including frontline and de-occupied territories and in the war zone.
“I am grateful to the partners for their support and quick response to requests from Ukrainian hospitals. I am grateful to our medics who show heroism at their workplaces on a daily basis. I am grateful to our team, which is not afraid to take responsibility in the most difficult situations. We are moving forward and, thanks to our Defenders, we are working not only to solve current problems, but also to build a long-term strategy for the restoration of Ukrainian medicine” – emphasized the founder of ZDOROVI Natalia Tulinova.
Partners of Zdorovi Foundation are, in particular, such international organizations as the International Renaissance Foundation, Razom for Ukraine, NOVA Ukraine, Americares, USAID, PHILIPS and others.
The number of houses, construction of which was started in the United States in June, decreased by 8% compared to the previous month and amounted to 1.434 million in terms of annual rates, according to the report of the Ministry of Commerce of the country.
According to the revised data, in May the number of new buildings amounted to 1.559 million, not 1.631 million, as previously announced.
Experts had forecast the figure to fall to 1.48 million from the previously announced May level, according to Trading Economics.
Construction of single-family homes fell 7% last month to 935,000. In the case of multifamily (including apartments and condominiums), a more volatile segment of the market, the number of new construction fell 11.6% to 482,000.
The number of building permits for new homes issued in the U.S. in June fell 3.7% to 1.44 million at an annualized pace from a revised 1.496 million a month earlier.
Analysts had expected the number of permits to fall to 1.49 million from the previously announced May figure of 1.491 million.
Kernel Agroholding’s assets in the port of Chernomorsk were subjected to a massive missile attack from Russia on Wednesday and suffered significant damage, the company said in a statement on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
“The company’s grain handling facilities as well as grain stored at the Chernomorsk port were significantly damaged. Initial assessments indicate that it will take considerable time to return the assets to working condition,” Kernel said.
Reports of the damage led to a collapse of the share price on the exchange from PLN13.53 to PLN12.34 and high volatility: at one point they managed to recover the fall, but by 15:00 local time they were quoted at around PLN12.7-12.9, about 5% below the opening price.
As reported, the company’s CEO Yevhen Osipov in early July at a meeting of the grain club of the Ukrainian Grain Association reported on the need for further development of alternative corridors for export of Ukrainian agricultural products already built on the Danube and assured that Ukraine can fulfill forward deliveries through them.
Before the war, Kernel Agroholding ranked first in the world in the production of sunflower oil (about 7% of world production) and its export (about 12%). The company is one of the largest producers and sellers of bottled oil in Ukraine. In addition, the agroholding is engaged in the cultivation of agricultural products and their realization.
The largest co-owner of Kernel through Namsen Ltd. – is Ukrainian businessman Andriy Verevsky with a 41.3% stake, who recently proposed delisting the company from the Warsaw Stock Exchange and buying back shares from other shareholders.
Kernel’s net profit for the first nine months of 2023FY (Jan-March 2023) rose 36% to $437 mln, while revenue fell 45% to $2.715 bln.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki assured on Wednesday that Warsaw does not intend to open borders for agricultural products from Ukraine. “We are protecting our agriculture, so we are not opening the borders for agricultural goods from Ukraine,” Polish Radio quoted him as saying Wednesday.
“The war in Ukraine is having an increasingly serious impact on the agricultural market, and this has a negative impact on Poles, so we have imposed an embargo on goods from Ukraine,” Morawiecki said.
He admitted that “in a couple of months, the EU intends to reopen the borders for grain imports from Ukraine.”
“We do not agree to this, we will not open the borders and we will not allow destabilization of our economy. We are obliged to protect Polish interests and our agriculture,” the Polish Prime Minister emphasized.
Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telusz said that the meeting of agricultural ministers reached an agreement and signed a petition to extend the ban on imports of four grains from Ukraine until the end of 2023.
“The restriction of grain imports from Ukraine has not affected transit. In February, corn transit amounted to 114,000 tons and in June 260,000 tons. Therefore, the European Commission’s decision to open the borders on September 15 is not meaningfully justified,” the Polish Agriculture Ministry quoted Telusz as saying on Twitter.
According to the Polish minister, the ministers of Ukraine and Moldova were invited to the meeting of agricultural ministers in Warsaw, but they could not come for objective reasons. The Polish minister expressed hope for a meeting in the future.
“We want to help Ukraine in transit. We know that this war is a war that we have to win,” Telusz said and added that it will be won when solutions will be “implemented that will help us in this.”
Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, in agreement with the European Commission (EC), have banned imports of wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower seeds from Ukraine since May 2.
Problems for agricultural producers from a number of European countries associated with the surplus of Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products in the markets of Eastern Europe began in the first months of 2023. In many respects, they were provoked by the temporary abolition of customs duties on imports of grain and oilseeds from Ukraine by the EU. Due to this measure by Brussels, imports of agricultural products from Ukraine to the border states increased significantly.
Ukrainian products, in particular, grain, sunflower, eggs, poultry meat, sugar, apples and apple juice, berries, flour, honey and pasta in unprecedented quantities began to settle on the shelves in these countries, which led to a sharp drop in prices and hit hard the farmers in these countries.
Meanwhile, as First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Trade Yulia Sviridenko said on Wednesday at a meeting with the European Business Association (EBA), Ukraine is categorically against the extension of the EU’s discriminatory ban on the supply of a number of agro-commodities to Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania after September 15.
According to her, the ban on exports of wheat, barley, rapeseed and sunflower seeds to the above five countries is “discriminatory on the part of the nearest neighbors, especially when Ukraine has an enemy at sea.”
Asked what would happen if the ban was still extended, the first deputy prime minister said that in such a case Ukraine would be forced to consider mirror measures.
“I would not like to say out loud and believe that this is a realistic step, but we think that some mirror measures can be applied,” Sviridenko said.
Insurance group “TAS” (Kiev) for the first six months of 2023 paid insurance indemnities in the amount of UAH 611.19 million – by 35.6% more than in the first six months of last year, according to the insurer’s website.
According to its data, payments under hull insurance contracts for the specified period increased by 52.2% – up to UAH 188.16 million, which is 30.79% of the total amount of payments for this period.
At the same time, the share of CMTPL insurance in the portfolio of payments amounted to 38.24% (UAH 233.69 million) – by 25.5% more than in the corresponding period last year. Even more – by 78,6% – payments under “Green Card” have grown – up to UAH 106,38 mln, which is 17,41% of the total volume of payments of the group.
In turn, under contracts of voluntary medical insurance SG “TAS” in January – June paid UAH 63,58 mln, which is 10,4% of the total amount of indemnities paid during the reporting period and by 5,3% exceeds the corresponding indicator for six months last year.
In the first half of the year TAS IG paid UAH 4.38 mln under property insurance contracts, and UAH 15 mln under other insurance contracts.
