In January-March of this year Ukrtruboprom has increased pipes production by 5.9% in comparison with the same period of the last year – up to 126.5 thousand tons.
According to the Association, this January they produced about 30 thousand tons of tubes (44.9% of January-2022), in February – 39.5 thousand tons (80.4% of February-2022), in March – 57 thousand tons (1631.4% of March-2022).
It is to be noted that the pipe companies showed multidirectional dynamics in the first quarter. In particular, “Interpipe Niko Tube” and NPO with IP “Ukrtruboizol” increased the production of seamless tubes by 21.6% and 7.7%, respectively, while “Trubostal” decreased by 73.3%, “Centravis” – stainless steel tubes by 23.7%, “Interpipe NMTZ” – electric-welded pipes by 89.1%. Oskar pipe production dropped by 16.7%.
Georgiy Polskiy, director general of Ukrtruboprom, noted that the results of the first quarter of 2023, although they look positive at first glance, are deceptive when viewed in more detail: most companies showed a decline in production, and the final 6% increase is only the result of a low comparison base.
“Let me remind you that last March the industry virtually came to a halt due to the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops. In any case, we cannot speak of pre-war production volumes in the pipe industry. However, due to the stable conjuncture of foreign markets (although there is a certain slowdown in consumption with some regional changes), the output of pipes is growing every month,” said the general director.
According to him, in this light, the situation with scrap metal supply for seamless pipes producers in Ukraine, who use scrap metal as the main raw material, is of great concern.
Thus, the first quarter of 2023 was characterized by a strong shortage of scrap in Ukraine, the volume of which reached 20% in the MMC as a whole.
“Obviously, this factor led to losses in production at pipe enterprises. Moreover, the situation remains tense, as Ukraine has been experiencing a strategic shortage of scrap for more than 20 years, and there are now no tools to increase scrap production. Exacerbate the situation is a record amount of exports of scrap metal, which is exported from the country without paying duty through non-transparent schemes, which causes damage to the state budget, “- said Polish, quoted by the press service.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Ukrtruboprom enterprises in 2022 reduced the production of pipes by 37.9% compared to 2021, to 449.7 thousand tons. Last year all plants showed negative dynamics. “Interpipe Niko Tube” and “Trubostal” decreased the production of seamless pipes by 31.1% and 61.6%, respectively, “Centravis” – stainless steel pipes by 38.3%, “Interpipe NMTZ” – electric-welded pipes by 67.1%. Oskar pipe production dropped by 20%, and only Ukrtruboizol, an NGO with a CI, reached the output level of the year before last. The Dnepropetrovsk pipe plant is idle and is in a state of liquidation.
The USAID Agro program has more than doubled grant co-financing for elevator capacity expansion projects, increasing it from UAH 185 million to UAH 380 million, which should allow for 20 projects, the program’s press service said Thursday.
“The USAID AGRO program increases … the number of potential co-financing projects from 10 to 20 to expand grain storage and drying facilities. This will allow participants in the grain market to compensate for the lack of capacity arising in Ukraine due to limited exports and complicated logistics,” the donor organization said.
It is assumed that the funds will be used to purchase equipment for the processing, drying and storage of grain, as well as the purchase of laboratory equipment to determine the quality of grain.
Applications for the third stage of the contest will be accepted until June 12, 2023 at 18:00 o’clock or until the money has been exhausted.
Ukraine’s largest car-building enterprise, Dneprovagonmash JSC (DVM, Kamianske, Dnipro region), controlled by businessman Sergiy Tigipko’s TAS Financial and Industrial Group, ended the first quarter of 2023 with a net profit of UAH 37.04 million against a loss of UAH 18.07 million in January-March 2022.
According to the company’s interim financial statements published in the National Securities and Stock Market Commission’s (NSSMC) information disclosure system, net sales revenue increased by 32% to UAH 396.92 million.
In January-March, the company increased its gross profit by almost 12 times to UAH 59.47 million, generating UAH 37.82 million in operating profit against a loss of UAH 16.06 million.
Compared to the beginning of this year, DVM reduced current liabilities by 27% to UAH 217.62 million, while long-term liabilities increased by 12.6% to UAH 59.34 million.
The report does not include the number of railcars produced and sold in the reporting period.
“Dneprovagonmash is one of Ukraine’s leading freight car design and manufacturing companies. Its annual production capacity is 9 thousand units.
As reported, DVM’s net income for 2022 increased by 77.3% to UAH 1 billion 108.7 million, with net profit of UAH 48.64 million compared to a loss of UAH 111.3 million a year earlier. At the same time, sales of railcars increased by 35% to 623 units, and production by 21% to 577 units.
TAS Group was founded in 1998 by businessman Tigipko. Its business interests include the financial sector (banking and insurance) and pharmacy, as well as industry, real estate, and venture capital projects.
The office real estate market in Kiev is recovering, the number of requests and transactions from IT-companies, nonprofit and international organizations has increased, CEO of allbc Valentin Lenchenko told Interfax-Ukraine.
The expert reminded that for many business centers last year was a year of tenants’ retention on any terms.
“The main task at the beginning of the fall was to survive the winter with tenants. On any terms. The main thing is that they paid utilities and OREH (often not in full). But with the advent of the blackout migration began, people who used to work from home, moved to co-working spaces with diesel generators and Internet”, – said Lenchenko.
According to him, as a result, offices in the capital during the blackout were filled almost completely. A temporary rush was created, which led to the opening of new locations. However, by January, when things stabilized and many had resolved the issue of household power plants, the situation was back to previous levels.
“Newcomers continue to recruit residents, but demand has dropped significantly. Demand is still high for finished offices – with renovations, furniture, diesel generators and shelter,” the expert stressed.
He noted a positive systemic trend in recent months – the activation of tenants.
“Many IT companies that relocated to Western Ukraine, began to return home to Kiev. And they are not the only IT companies – there are a lot of requests and deals from non-profit and international organizations,” Lenchenko said.
He gave an example of recent transactions of allbc. An IT-company has asked to find a ready office for more than 200 employees; in the process of searching and negotiating the lease agreement, it turned out that a lot more employees want to come back to Kiev. As a result, this company has rented two offices with total area of about 4 ths sq.m. instead of the office with 2 ths sq.m. Another IT-company recently rented an 800 square meters office with furniture and repairs in Podol Business Center.
But in general, according to the expert, the main tenants and transactions request was observed on the format of about 200 square meters. “As a rule it is medium-sized business which adapts to the current conditions or optimizes the space”, – he says.
Another trend is that large tenants with large equipped offices on the right bank have started asking to rent offices/workspaces in co-working spaces on the left bank.
This provides comfortable spaces for employees who prefer to work closer to home for safety reasons. “The criteria are the same: with repairs, furniture, a diesel generator and shelter,” Lenchenko stressed.
He also singled out a separate category of potential tenants with whom, despite high vacancy rates, most landlords do not want to contact. “We’re talking about so-called “musicians,” call centers that play music loudly. Now they call themselves IT people, marketing people and even agrarians, but as a rule, they are scam artists. The average area rented by them is from 500 to 2,000 square meters, but given the trail they leave behind, they do not want to do business with them,” stressed Lenchenko.
The expert also noted that despite the war, there are also deals on the market for the purchase and sale of office space/buildings. “There are buyers in the market. They usually come with a discount of 30% to 50%. Foreign investors who believe in winning are already starting to look at buying, because they understand: now is the right time,” he says.
allbc.info is a service for renting or buying offices in business centers and free-standing buildings in Ukrainian cities (Kiev, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Odessa, and Lviv).
Ambassadors of European Union member states supported the extension of trade liberalization with Ukraine, the Swedish EU presidency said on its Twitter page.
“The Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) has just supported the renewal of the Provisional Trade Liberalization Regulation supplementing trade concessions under the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. This will support Ukraine’s economy after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” the statement said.
The decision must then be approved by the European Parliament, followed by a formal decision by the European Council. The procedure should be completed at the end of May.
A day earlier, on Thursday, the “green light” to extend the cancellation of import duties on Ukrainian exports to the European Union for a period of one year to support the country’s economy was given by the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade. The vote in the plenary session is scheduled for May 8-11.
As it was reported, the problematic issue was the ban on the import of Ukrainian agricultural products by five EU countries – Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. It was caused by the accumulation in these countries of Ukrainian agricultural products intended for further import. In this connection, on April 19, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced proposals to introduce a temporary – until June 5 – import ban on corn, wheat, rapeseed, sunflower and sunflower oil for these five countries. Besides, financial compensation in the amount of EUR100 million is envisaged for these countries.
The European Dairy Association (EDA) expressed dissatisfaction with the European Commission over the unilateral imposition by several EU member states of restrictions on the import of Ukrainian agricultural products, in particular dairy products, and demands support for the extension of suspension of all tariffs and quotas, the EDA said.
“As EDA, we have clearly stated our support for the continuation of the European Commission’s zero quota, zero tariff approach when it comes to Ukrainian dairy exports to the EU. These exceptional times ask for unity rather than solo flying member states putting the internal market at risk. Today we cannot see a market impact that would justify any restrictions on the import of Ukrainian dairy imports, and we therefore called upon the European Commission to defend the integrity of the single market and to uphold the special suspension for all tariffs and quotas,” it said.
“Our special EU-Ukrainian dairy relationship was recently underlined with the attendance of the CEO of the Ukrainian Dairy Federation at our latest EDA Dairy Policy Conference in March 2023,” it added.
