Meest China, an international postal and logistics company that is part of the Meest holding, has announced the start of operations on another continent. It is about the delivery of goods from China to African countries, in particular to South Africa and Nigeria. Currently, air delivery of goods from popular Chinese marketplaces such as Taobao, 1688 and Pinduoduo is available.
Delivery from China to African countries takes 9-12 days. Additional services are also available to customers, such as cargo insurance, parcel consolidation, thorough inspection, photo report, and photo fixation in the warehouse.
“Each new country is a new challenge for us, and here is a whole new continent. We have been preparing for the launch for more than a year, assembled a powerful team for this area, so we are waiting for good news from sunny Africa and rapid development,” said Mykhailo Lymar, CEO and Managing Partner of Meest China.
We remind you that Meest China delivers cargo from China to Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Croatia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Chile, Mexico and more than two dozen other countries. Over the past few months, the company has also launched deliveries to Ukraine from Japan and South Korea.
About the company
Meest China has been operating since 2014 and is currently the leader in delivery from China to Ukraine. The company specializes in the delivery of goods from China in the format of duty-free postal parcels for personal use, as well as the delivery of commercial goods for business clients. The company has representative offices in China, Uzbekistan, Poland, and Ukraine and its own warehouses in Ukraine and China. Currently, the company delivers cargo from China to about 30 countries, from Korea and Japan to Ukraine, and provides freight services for delivery around the world.
The company has 100% Ukrainian roots and has been actively helping the military since the first days of the invasion, for which in 2023 it received a commendation from the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine for its systematic assistance and active civic position in the struggle for Ukraine’s independence.
More about the company and services: https://meest.cn/.
Avto-Region, the exclusive distributor of Turkish buses Temsa in Ukraine, plans to sell about 100 buses of this brand in 2024, which will increase its market share to 10% compared to 2% in 2023, when 20 buses were sold, said Nikita Gaidamakha, head of the bus production direction.
“Last year our share was 2%, but it was the beginning of joint production of buses in Ukraine with Temsa, and this year we plan to sell at least 100 buses primarily due to participation in the state program ‘School Bus’,” he told a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.
Gaidamakha specified that by now the company has managed to reach the level of localization of almost 20%, and now it is working on increasing this share this year up to 25%, taking into account the requirements of the law on localization.
According to him, two models are now localized in Ukraine: the Prestij SX intercity bus with 30 seats and a school bus based on this model.
“Today the first serial batches of these models are at the final stage of production and will be available for ordering from April,” Gaidamakha specified.
He added that large contacts with Ukrainian manufacturers of components have already been signed for the implementation of the production program.
As specified the head of the company’s sales department Alexander Butenko, among the Ukrainian components in the bus are seats, double-glazed windows, autonomous heating systems, elements of interior arrangement.
“Now there are negotiations with a Ukrainian company to install the Smart Bus system, which is also a warning system that can find the nearest shelters, and even allows parents to see the children in the bus,” Butenko specified.
Gaidamakha in turn emphasized that the company is currently developing a large investment project and plans to protect it in order to start production in Ukraine of all buses of the model line Temsa .
“In particular, yesterday we received the first updated model of tourist bus for 55 seats, we attract engineers to study the product, and we will look for ways to localize it here,” he said.
In addition, the possibility of creating a school bus with an electric motor is under consideration, the project of which is planned to be realized in the near future.
According to him, the Temsa school bus is significantly more expensive than the models of domestic manufacturers, its cost is 4950 thousand UAH.
“But we do not set the task to compete on price. The main goal that we have set with our partners is not so much the development of production as the transfer of experience and standards operating in the world to Ukraine. We want to show by our example that such transportation is more expedient and change the existing market in Ukraine,” Gaidamakha emphasized.
He expressed the opinion that Ukraine, when forming the state transport strategy, should understand how much cheaper and certain savings in purchases will turn into overpayment in the future, when it will be necessary to replace the equipment that meets European standards.
Gaidamaha pointed out that today in Ukraine many tenders for the supply of electric buses for the funds of European financial institutions remain without bids and are postponed because manufacturers cannot fulfill the conditions of the customer.
In addition, in his opinion, the bottleneck in the law on localization is the inability to cover the existing demand in Ukraine for the supply of tourist buses for government agencies.
“Given the closed skies in Ukraine, we often receive requests from government agencies for tourist buses with 55 seats for transportation of employees abroad, but such transport is not mass produced in Ukraine, and such production requires large investments, experience and technological base. It is difficult to localize it, and as a result we are forced to refuse such clients,” Gaidamakha said.
The head of the company’s sales department Christina Bratchikova, in turn, noted that in January, Temsa buses have already taken 11% of the market (according to Ukravtoprom) with the registration of 13 buses.
“The share of Temsa speaks of consumer confidence and that business is looking towards transportation with Euro 6 ecostandards.” Today the bus market is concentrated around school buses, but in general the demand for buses is greater than the supply and we have requests for large tourist buses and even electric vehicles. Therefore, we believe that this year there will be an increase in the market,” she said.
In turn, Temsa’s vice president for sales and marketing Hakan Koralp noted that the company sees great prospects in the Ukrainian market and pays great attention to it.
“We started negotiations with Auto-Region in 2021 and signed a representation agreement in 2023. We are actively studying the requirements of the localization law, and we are pleased that Auto-Region has received Temsa’s permission to perform work on the completion of unfinished vehicles, such as Prestij SX, in Ukraine, and we are confident that this is just the beginning,” he said.
Hakan Koralp noted that today Temsa has a wide model range from 7-meter to 14-meter city and tourist buses, has a significant share in the U.S. bus market and more than 10 thousand buses operating in the European market.
Vitaliy Pasichny, deputy director of the company, reminded that Auto-Region officially represents in Ukraine, in addition to Temsa bus equipment, the Korean brand of trucks and special vehicles Daewoo Trucks and Indian car manufacturer TATA.
“This year we plan to expand the model range of these brands, and if in 2023 in Ukraine was delivered 65 cargo pickup trucks Tata Xenon, in the current year plans about 350. In addition, we plan to sell about 300 Daewoo Trucks, and more if there are orders. We have already imported a medium-duty Daewoo with GVW of 10 tons, and by the end of the year something will appear in TATA as well,” he said.
Pasichny noted that cooperation with Daewoo began in 2020. Utility, commercial, and firefighting vehicles were supplied. By now, according to him, more than 200 projects have been realized, and more than 2.5 thousand cars of this brand are already running in Ukraine.
He named the price/quality ratio and the most affordable price for pickup trucks on the Ukrainian market as the main advantages of TATA pickup trucks. At the same time, Pasichny specified that there are no plans to produce pickup trucks in Ukraine.
Viktor Kovbyk, head of the technical department of Auto-Region, said in turn that the company has a service network in Ukraine and plans to sign up to 20 service contracts.
“We could do more, but the obstacle is martial law and a number of other factors,” he said.
At the same time, Kovbyk noted that the partners with the onset of full-scale war did not stop cooperation. “And already in April 2022 resumed our orders, began to implement projects even without prepayment, which speaks of confidence in us,” he emphasized.
According to him, the company’s warehouse of spare parts for three brands with an area of more than 1 thousand square meters allows to provide three months of uninterrupted work without additional supply.
In addition, the company has three mobile brigades to work in remote areas, and repairs equipment for the Ukrainian military at service stations free of charge.
Speaking about the company’s problem in connection with mobilization, Pasichny noted that Auto-Region is currently submitting documents for inclusion in the list of critical infrastructure enterprises for the possibility of reservation, as the company services vehicles for utility workers and the military and has contracts with the military.
At the same time, he added that last year Avto-Region managed to increase the number of employees by 30%, primarily by attracting young specialists.
Answering a question from Interfax-Ukraine, Pasichny noted that in 2022-2023, 90% of the company’s sales were state purchases, as business is not yet ready to invest money and “mostly buys cheap or used”.
It was noted that long-term forecasts of the car market in Ukraine in the company does not take to build because of the war.
“There is a pent-up demand for cars, and the forecast is still complicated because of the war, but after the victory we predict a significant breakthrough and hope that Ukraine will repeat the results of the car market in 2006-2007,” – summarized Kovbyk.
Auto-Region LLC with authorized capital of 230 thousand UAH was registered in 2004 in Kiev. It specializes in the supply of special vehicles, trucks, buses for urban, intercity and tourist transportation. It has 10 official service centers in Ukraine.
The owner of 100% of the company is Dmytro Gaidamakha, who is currently serving in the AFU.
According to the data of the Сlarity system, in January-September 2023 the company increased its net profit 11.6 times to the same period of 2022 – up to UAH 75.3 mln, while net income grew 3.2 times to UAH 1 bln 234 mln.
In 2022, the company’s net income grew 3.8 times by 2021 to UAH 656.2m, with net profit of UAH 41.3m compared to UAH 0.88m.
Vodafone will have another code with a “five”. Vodafone is adding +380 75 to the list of mobile network codes available to its subscribers. Vodafone received this permission today by the decision of the National Commission.
The company is starting to implement the new numbering resource in all internal systems and services. By the end of the year, subscribers will be able to choose a number starting with 075.
Vodafone already has four numbering codes at its disposal: 050, 066, 095, 099. The additional numbering resource significantly increases the choice of the desired combination of numbers for new and existing subscribers.
Recently, many people have been forced to change not only their homes but also their lifestyles. Some volunteer, some raise money, some try to speed up the Victory in other ways. Sometimes new initiatives are connected with getting a new or additional phone number. For some people, the number means a lot – it should be easy to remember, should be similar to another number, or simply be associated with something important, such as the date of an event.
Vodafone customers can choose a number among those available at points of sale or by visiting the Choose a Number (https://www.vodafone.ua/gold-number) page on the Vodafone website. The service allows not only to choose but also to reserve the desired number that meets the required criteria:
– Selection by mask: a constructor that allows you to flexibly set the search parameters (for example, specify 5XXXX111 and get numbers with exactly those digits)
– Match by date: all variants of numbers that coincide with the date of an event
– Favorite number: 3-4 identical or non-identical digits standing side by side anywhere in the number, for example, all variants of 123
– Similar number: a pool of numbers that are similar to the one proposed by the user
– Exclude digits: numbers that do not contain specific digits
– Word in the number: allows you to “encode” your favorite word in the number: to do this, you need to write it in Cyrillic or Latin as on the keyboard of an old push-button phone
– All numbers: the system itself offers the most beautiful number plates, you do not need to specify any parameters
The number matching service also allows you to restore your deactivated number. If such a number is not offered on the service page, you need to click the “Restore number” button and follow the instructions to create a request for number restoration. Vodafone supports the initiative of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine to reserve mobile numbers of the fallen or missing defenders of Ukraine. Taking into account the different circumstances and situations in which the company’s customers may be: at the front, in the temporarily occupied territory, in other regions of Ukraine or abroad, and in order to protect their interests, taking into account the security and privacy requirements of electronic communications, the company decided not to use all deactivated numbers for 2 years without additional requests from users of such numbers.
Only those numbers that have been deactivated for 2 years or more will be used for sale in stores and on the website.
Vodafone Ukraine is a leading Ukrainian telecommunications company providing 3G and 4G high-speed Internet, fixed-line communications and Internet services. Vodafone’s investments in the period of active construction of high-speed networks in 2015 – Q3 2023 exceeded UAH 40.6 billion. These record investments have enabled the company to ensure technological leadership and develop new technological services, including the Internet of Things (IoT), Smart City technologies and solutions, big data analytics, fintech services, and cloud services. Vodafone services are used by 15.2 million customers in Ukraine. Since December 2019, Vodafone Ukraine has been a part of NEQSOL Holding.
Ukraine’s international reserves in February, according to preliminary estimates of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), decreased by 3.8%, or by $1.47 billion – to $37.052 billion.
“Such dynamics is due to the NBU’s currency interventions to maintain exchange rate stability and the country’s debt payments in foreign currency, which were partially offset by receipts from international partners,” the NBU explained on its website on Wednesday.
Among other factors determining the volume of reserves, the NBU named operations in the foreign exchange market: in February, the regulator’s net sale of foreign currency amounted to $1.51 billion, which is 1.4 times less than in the previous month.
The National Bank noted that in February, $1.34 billion was transferred to the account of the Cabinet of Ministers in the NBU, while $1.13 billion was paid for servicing and repayment of state debt.
The central bank also indicated that the current volume of reserves was positively affected by the revaluation of the value of financial instruments, adding $199.5 million.
“The current volume of international reserves provides funding for 4.9 months of future imports,” the regulator stated.
As reported, the NBU in January lowered the forecast of Ukraine’s international reserves at the end of 2024g to $40.4 billion from $44.7 billion and to $42.1 billion from $45 billion at the end of 2025. For more details on the economy in Ukraine and around the world, see the video from the analytical project Experts Club – https://youtu.be/byJnfmie7bM?si=nWnf5J2CUrqaXF-j
Subscribe to Experts Club channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ExpertsClub
The Ukrainian Institute in Sweden has selected two promising young pianists to receive scholarships from the foundation of Swedish philanthropist Anders Wall.
“We are extremely grateful to Anders Wall for introducing the award for Ukrainian young musicians. As a pianist, I have always understood how important it is to lend a helping hand to young pianists at the beginning of their careers, especially Ukrainian pianists who have always “stuck” to Russian pianists, even repertoire-wise, because there were more opportunities there. Since 2017, when I began to be involved in the Horowitz Young Pianists Competition, I have given two Ukrainian pianists the opportunity to present themselves at various venues in Scandinavia. But this new prize certainly attracts much more attention and offers many more opportunities. Being noticed in the international environment, especially at the beginning of your career, is extremely important,” said Natalia Pasichnyk, director of the Ukrainian Institute in Sweden and concert pianist.
As part of its support for Ukraine, the Anders Wall’s Västerlöfsta Foundation has established an annual award of SEK 100,000 (approximately EUR 10,000) to support young Ukrainian pianists.
The first recipients of the Anders Wall’s Västerlöfsta Scholarship for Young Ukrainian Pianists are 19-year-old Roman Fedyurko from Kyiv and 21-year-old Anton Bondarenko from Zaporizhzhia.
“The purpose of the scholarships is to give promising Ukrainian talents more opportunities for further development in a very difficult time for Ukraine, but it is also a way to draw attention to and support Ukrainian culture. The war is largely about the Russian leadership denying the existence of a Ukrainian nation with its own culture,” said Charlotte Wall, chairman of the Westerlefst Church Music Foundation.
The scholarships will be awarded during a concert at Westerlevsta Church in Hebø on May 4. The concert will be a part of the program of the festival of Ukrainian culture “European Festival: Ukrainian Spring”, which will start in Sweden on April 24 and last for two weeks.
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Roman Fedyurko started studying piano at a music school in Kyiv at the age of five. In 2021, Roman won first prize at the Liszt Center’s online piano competition, the Wiener Klassiker online competition, and the Isidor Badji Piano Competition in Novi Sad, and received a scholarship for young artists from the President of Ukraine. In 2022, Roman won first prize at the Volodymyr Horowitz International Piano Competition.
Anton Bondarenko started studying music at the age of five in the Zaporizhzhia Music School. He became a laureate of several national and international piano competitions among young people, performed with the Zaporizhzhia Symphony Orchestra and the Kyiv State Symphony Orchestra. In 2017, he was awarded the title of “Artist of the Zaporizhzhia Philharmonic”. Anton is currently studying at the Academy of Music in the frontline city of Dnipro.
Since the beginning of 2024, JSC Ukrgasvydobuvannya (UGV) has launched its fourth high-performance well, with a daily flow rate of about 400 thousand cubic meters, the press service of Naftogaz of Ukraine Group reported on Wednesday.
According to the press service, thanks to the efficient work of Ukrburgaz specialists, the well was completed in just 105 days, which is 30% faster than the project schedule. During the work, a daily record was set for one team to drill 905 meters in 24 hours.
Specialists of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Natural Gases (UkrNDIGas), a part of the Naftogaz Group, correctly assessed the residual potential of the old field, successfully identified the well site and proved the high prospects of drilling in this area.
As reported, in 2023, UGV launched 86 new wells, including 24 with an initial flow rate of more than 100 thousand cubic meters. In January 2024, the company put into operation a well with a daily flow rate of 250 thousand cubic meters, and in February – two more new wells with a total daily flow rate of 550 thousand cubic meters.
In 2022, UGV produced 12.5 bcm of natural gas (commercial), which is 3% less than in 2021. In 2023, the company produced 13.224 bcm of commercial gas, which is 0.679 bcm more than in 2022.
NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine owns 100% of Ukrgasvydobuvannya shares.
