The Chinese company Sinohydro Corporation Limited intends to file a claim in international arbitration for the termination of the contract for the reconstruction of the bypass road around Zhytomyr by the State Agency of Automobile Roads of Ukraine (Ukravtodor).
According to the company’s statement, Sinohydro considers it unfair that Ukravtodor, having failed to effectively fulfill its contractual obligations, unilaterally decided to terminate the contract, while the Dispute Settlement Council (created under the contract together with Ukravtodor in May 2020) is still considering disputes surrounding this contract and has already ruled on some of them, allowing Sinohydro to renew the contract.
Sinohydro says the untimely transfer of a land plot for public use by Ukravtodor, the introduction of a number of design changes not provided for in the contract, failure to fulfill payment obligations, as well as force majeure in the form of the COVID-19 epidemic and many other factors influenced the project schedule and led to a violation of the terms of work.
“Since June 2020, facing an unfavorable situation caused by the fact that Ukravtodor did not complete the interim payment for construction work on time, and the continuing impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, Sinohydro has advanced over EUR 5 million to meet its contractual obligations and reduce the delay,” the company said.
It is emphasized that in comparison with other sections of roads under construction in Ukraine at the same time, this project is being implemented at a rather fast pace and is already nearing completion.
“Under the circumstances, the Dispute Settlement Council decided on the first contract dispute initiated by Sinohydro in September 2020. It agreed to extend the contractor’s deadline for construction work by 87 days. However, when the Council began considering at least four disputes over damages to Sinohydro, Ukravtodor unexpectedly announced the termination of the contract,” the report says.
At the end of the fourth five-year period, the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) will revise anti-dumping restrictions on the supply of Certain Cut-to-length Carbon Steel Plate to the American market from Ukraine, Russia and China.
According to the USITC report in the Federal Register bulletin, the start of the review is set for November 2, the deadline for responses from participants in the review procedure is December 2, 2020.
During the revision procedure, USITC will determine the possibility of abolishing anti-dumping duties on these products from China, as well as ending the suspension of the investigation on this type of rental from the Russian Federation and Ukraine – to what extent this may lead to the continuation or renewal of damage to local manufacturers of these products in the United States.
On October 30, the Ukrainian company WindFarm and the Chinese company PowerChina signed a contract on the joint implementation of a project for the construction of an 800 MW wind farm with a capacity of over $1 billion in Manhush and Nikolske districts of Donetsk region, Board Chairman of the Ukrainian Wind Energy Association (UWEA) Andriy Konechenkov has said.
“The specifics of this project is that it does not provide for a feed-in tariff. This is the first robin in the electricity market, the first project that will compete with conventional generation in real conditions,” he told Interfax-Ukraine.
At the same time, according to him, the project provides for local content policy or local components, which gives rise to the development of national wind energy production.
“How the payment for this local component will be carried out remains to be decided,” Konechenkov said.
He also said that the Chinese company is participating in this project “as an investor in a large, transparent project that does not depend on the ffeed-in tariff,” which, according to him, has already exhausted itself given the crisis of non-payments.
“It is necessary to start working on new technologies. Moreover, the issue is related to the reintegration of the regions, the launch of new environment-friendly production,” the board chairman of the UWEA said, noting that investors are currently not considering the possibility of participating in “green auctions” due to weak predictability of conditions and timing of their implementation.
At the same time, he expressed the hope that the experience and capabilities of the Chinese investor will contribute to the implementation of the project as soon as possible, noting that PowerChina is ready to work on the basis of the support of a domestic manufacturer and financing of European wind turbines.
Konechenkov said that this project, which has been in preparation for about a year, will become the largest onshore wind farm in Europe.
According to the data on the UWEA website, PowerChina, which specializes in the design and construction of energy and transport facilities, is in the top 100 largest companies in the country and in the top 500 largest companies in the world. In particular, it owns the Three Gorges, the world’s largest hydroelectric dam with a capacity of 22.5 GW.
The WindFarm team has developed a portfolio of wind power plants with a total capacity of 1.3 GW, of which more than 400 MW have already been put into operation.
Both companies are members of the UWEA.
Ukraine and China have signed a program of cooperation in the field of aerospace for 2021-2025, which consists of 69 joint projects with a total value of contracts of more than $70 million.
As reported on the website of the State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU), the program was signed at a meeting of the Ukrainian-Chinese subcommittee on cooperation in space of the Commission on Cooperation between the Governments of Ukraine and China on October 22. The Ukrainian side was chaired by SSAU Head Volodymyr Usov, the Chinese – by Administrator of the Chinese National Space Administration (СNSA) Zhang Kejian.
The cooperation program will be the main one for joint activities of the two countries in space exploration in the medium term.
During the meeting, an agreement on the establishment of a joint laboratory of space science was also signed and an agreement to strengthen the exchange of information on space activities of the two countries was reached.
The next meeting of the subcommittee on cooperation in the field of space is scheduled for 2021 in China.
The first container train on the China-Kazakhstan-Russia-Belarus-Ukraine new route, which delivered 41 containers with refrigeration equipment, has arrived in Ukraine.
The press service of Ukrzaliznytsia said on Thursday morning that the train had been on the way for 19 days.
Work is underway on the frequency of the train running once a week. “If there is sufficient cargo, the frequency of running will be increased and the train will run according to a clear schedule,” the press service said.
Work on the route’s capacity filling continues, “especially in the direction of receiving subsidies from China for cargo, so that the conditions of cargo transportation are economically attractive for carriers.”
In addition, Ukrzaliznytsia is developing an online service to enable customers to order a container seat on a train and pay for the service online, similar to purchasing tickets for passenger trains.
Ukrzaliznytsia recalled that direct container trains from China to Ukraine began to run on the territory of four countries from June 8, 2020. During this time, 13 trains have already arrived.
Container traffic accounts for 2.3% of the total volume of cargo transportation by rail in Ukraine. Currently, 36 container trains organized by Ukrzaliznytsia run on a regular basis across Ukraine.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky believes that current good indicators of trade turnover between Ukraine and China can be significantly increased, and Ukraine will have something to offer China in terms of exporting high-tech products, products with a high degree of processing and high added value.
“Ukraine has significant potential for cooperation with China in various fields, comparable or even greater than that of many other Eastern European countries. We are interested in the successful realization of this potential. China confidently took the first line in the ranking of our largest trading partners: last year our trade turnover amounted to about $13 billion. And China takes leading positions among the main export partners of Ukraine. I am convinced that the current figures can be significantly increased,” he said in an interview with the Chinese news agency Xinhua.
The President of Ukraine said that Ukraine was one of the first countries to support the initiative of the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping “One Belt, One Road.”
“Ukraine has a unique geographical location – on the eastern border of the EU, on the way from Asia to Europe, as well as between the Black and Baltic Seas. We have the necessary economic and industrial potential for effective participation in this ambitious project,” he said.
Among the priorities of practical cooperation with China, Zelensky named the credit and investment, agro-industrial, engineering and transport sectors. “Ukraine has significant scientific and educational potential, rich culture. All this provides good opportunities for increasing the volume of trade and economic cooperation, enhancing bilateral humanitarian contacts and exchanges,” he said.
Zelensky said that in order to create better conditions for tourism development, Ukraine introduced a temporary visa-free regime for Chinese tourists from August 1.
“We will continue to try to improve the conditions for mutual trips of citizens of the two countries, so that they have better opportunities to get acquainted with the rich history and culture of Ukraine and China,” he said.
In his opinion, one of the steps towards cultural rapprochement between the two peoples should be the systematic training of specialists in Sinology in Ukraine, and now the Chinese language is being studied at Ukrainian secondary schools and universities, in Ukraine about 500 Sinologists annually receive diplomas of philology, there are qualified translators.
