Metinvest Mining and Metallurgical Group, including its associates and joint ventures, paid UAH 14.6 billion in taxes and duties to the budgets of all levels in Ukraine in 2023.
According to the company’s press release on Wednesday, Metinvest remains the backbone of the country’s economy in the face of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The press release specifies that the largest deductions include a unified social tax, which amounted to UAH 3.3 billion, income tax – UAH 3.2 billion, and personal income tax – more than UAH 3 billion.
At the same time, last year Metinvest’s Ukrainian enterprises increased land payments by almost 10% compared to 2022, to UAH 1.2 billion. Environmental tax payments also increased to UAH 608 million.
In addition, subsoil use fees in the amount of UAH 2.2 billion became a significant source of revenues for the state and local budgets of Ukraine in 2023.
Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of Metinvest Group, noted that the company had survived another extremely difficult year of war. Despite the serious challenges for the country in general and Ukrainian business in particular, it managed to survive and rebuild its operations in the new environment.
“Despite the problems with asset utilization and the aggressor’s naval blockade, despite the loss of control over assets in Mariupol, the shutdown of Avdiivka Coke and a significant reduction in the number of employees due to the war, Metinvest remains one of the largest taxpayers in Ukraine. And the refusal of tax benefits due to the company under the law allowed us to allocate additional funds to those areas where it is most needed. We continue to support Ukrainians and the army on their path to victory and call on every business to join in and support Ukraine through taxes, donations, assistance to the Armed Forces and civilians during the challenges we are all facing now,” the top manager emphasized.
“Metinvest is a vertically integrated group of steel and mining companies. The group’s enterprises are located mainly in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovs’k 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.
In 2023, Ukrgasvydobuvannya JSC paid UAH 23.8 billion in rent payments, the company’s press service reports.
According to the press service, UAH 1.19 billion, or 5%, of this amount went to the budgets of the local and regional levels where the company operates.
The budgets of Kharkiv and Poltava regions received the largest amount of payments – UAH 584.16 million and UAH 496.34 million, respectively.
The amount of rent payments is calculated in accordance with the sale price of Ukrgasvydobuvannya’s natural gas in favor of Naftogaz of Ukraine.
As reported, in 2022, UGV produced 12.5 bcm of natural gas (commercial), which is 3% less than in 2021.
For 2023, Ukrgasvydobuvannya has been set the task to increase natural gas production by 1 bcm to 13.5 bcm.
According to the operational data, the company increased production by more than 0.7 bcm in 2023. At the end of 2023, UGV reached an average daily production of 37.5 million cubic meters.
NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine owns 100% of Ukrgasvydobuvannya shares.
In 2023, Energoatom paid more than UAH 21 billion in tax and other payments to the state budget.
“This is UAH 1 billion more than the company paid to the state budget in 2021, when it operated all 15 nuclear power units,” NNEGC said on Telegram.
The head of Energoatom, Petra Kotina, noted that in terms of taxes and other payments to the state budget in 2023, the company managed to fulfill its obligations, operating only nine power units in the territory controlled by Ukraine without the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP with its six thousandth power units.
As reported, in the first half of 2023, Energoatom received UAH 68 billion in revenue and paid almost UAH 11 billion in taxes to the state budget of Ukraine.
The state budget of Ukraine received $5 billion in external financing in December, which is twice as much as the previous month, with more than 11% of the total financial assistance coming from grants on non-refundable terms, the press service of the Ministry of Finance reported on Wednesday.
“The attracted international assistance is used to finance priority social expenditures of the state budget, in particular, to pay salaries of employees of the education and healthcare sectors, humanitarian needs, as well as to ensure social protection of the population,” the release said.
According to the agency, the donors in December 2023 were Japan – $2.2 billion (concessional financing and grants), the EU – $1.6 billion (concessional financing), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – approximately $900 million (concessional financing), Norway – $190 million (grant), Germany – $55 million (grant), the United States – $50 million (grant), Switzerland – $20 million (grant) and the World Bank (WB) – $8 million (concessional financing).
It is specified that Japan has provided funding in the form of two grants: one for $180 million under the WB’s Emergency Project for Inclusive Support for Ukraine’s Agricultural Recovery (ARISE) and $52.4 million through the WB’s Housing and Opportunities for People’s Empowerment (HOPE) project.
Japan also financed loans for two WB projects: $1.09 billion for the Public Expenditure Support for Sustainable Governance in Ukraine (PEACE in Ukraine) and $900 million for the Investing in Social Protection for Improved Coverage, Resilience, and Efficiency (INSPIRE) project.
“EU funds in the amount of EUR 1.5 billion are the last tranche of a large-scale macro-financial assistance program (MFA+) of EUR 18 billion for 2023,” the Ministry of Finance emphasized.
As the Ministry reminded, the IMF provided Ukraine with financing worth about $900 million (SDR 663.9 million) as a result of the successful second review of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program by the IMF Executive Board.
At the same time, the grants from Norway, the United States, and Switzerland are part of the sixth additional financing under the PEACE in Ukraine project. In turn, a EUR 50 million grant from the German State Development Bank (KfW) was attracted under the state support program “Affordable Loans 5-7-9%”.
The Ministry of Finance clarified that the concessional financing from the WB in the amount of $8 million is additional funding for the project “Improving Healthcare at the Service of People”.
As reported, in November this year, the Ministry of Finance attracted about $2 billion to the state budget of Ukraine, and in October – $2.8 billion. In total, over 12 months of 2023, Ukraine received about $42.4 billion in external financing for the urgent needs of the state budget.
In 2023, Ukraine attracted $42 billion in external financing to cover budgetary needs and a record amount of borrowing in the domestic market, Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko said.
“This made it possible to finance all the necessary expenditures, first of all for the security and defense forces…,” he said at the Business Breakfeast with Volodymyr Fedorin on Wednesday.
The minister expressed hope that revenue targets would be met, although he said that in the case of customs it was “less likely.”
Marchenko noted that Ukraine has fulfilled its obligations under the Extended Fund Facility program with the IMF and EU macro-financial assistance.
In general, he stated that the implementation of the 2023 state budget seemed much calmer.
“Now we are less worried about 2025 than about 2024,” the Minister of Finance said when asked about the forecast for the next year’s budget plans.
He emphasized that it is necessary to stay in the program with the IMF and to achieve the opening of the Ukraine Facility from the European Union, which will solve the problem of 2025, which is associated with great uncertainty, in particular due to elections in partner countries, by 50%.
According to Marchenko, Ukraine should take steps to reduce its dependence on external partners.
“The key is the coherence of the government team’s actions in the broad sense of the word,” he said.
As reported earlier, Marchenko indicated that Ukraine’s need for external financing in 2024 was reduced from the initial $41 billion to $37.3 billion due to measures to maximize state budget revenues, activate the domestic debt market, and reduce all capital expenditures of the state budget.
In 2022, Ukraine attracted $32.1 billion in external financing.
US President Joe Biden has signed the National Defense Authorization Act, which provides a record $886 billion for defense needs in fiscal year 2024, the White House said in a statement on Friday, December 22.
“The law authorizes appropriations for the fiscal year primarily for the Department of Defense, national security programs of the Department of Energy, the Department of State, and the intelligence community. The law provides the critical authority we need to build the armed forces needed to deter future conflicts, and supports the service members, their spouses and families who carry out this mission every day,” the statement said.
As reported, on December 14, the US Senate approved a $886 billion defense bill, according to which a new position of special inspector general is to be created to monitor the use of military aid by Ukraine.
It was also reported that the Senate version of the budget included $300 million for Ukraine.
