President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has met with President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Suma Chakrabarti, the presidential press service has reported.
“We have a great history of cooperation between Ukraine and the EU. Today, the Beskydsky tunnel was opened – the largest infrastructure project in Ukraine, implemented with the help of international partners, including the EBRD. I am sure that every year we can jointly implement a number of major projects in different spheres,” the president of Ukraine emphasized.
The two discussed the state and prospects of Ukraine-EBRD partnership development. The Ukrainian president called on the president of the EBRD to double the funding of the projects and expand the scope of their implementation in Ukraine.
The presidents paid special attention to the implementation of reforms in the banking, energy and energy efficiency spheres.
They noted that the meeting of the National Investment Council to be held on May 25 should be an important event for presenting the results of the reforms to foreign investors and attracting investments for Ukraine’s economic development.
The president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development expressed willingness to continue supporting Ukraine on the way of implementation of structural reforms in the economy.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), following the results of a tender, has attracted the National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade (NatLaw) as an external adviser for the development of the warehouse receipt market in Ukraine.
The press service of the National Commission on Securities and the Stock Market said the regulator and NatLaw this week will hold a number of meetings with representatives of the capital market and specialists of state bodies to discuss supervision over the circulation of warehouse receipts in Ukraine, the certification and standardization of activities of depositories, the formation of guarantee funds, etc.
“Following the meetings, proposals will be developed to improve the legislation on warehouse receipts and recommendations how to improve the effectiveness of such a system will be made,” the document says.
The regulator said the system of warehouse receipts is a very important element in the efficient functioning of commodity exchange markets. At the same time, this instrument currently has limited application in Ukraine due to its functional shortcomings and is used only in the agricultural sector.
NatLaw is an American non-profit organization. In particular, it is engaged in providing consultations on regulatory reforms.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has left unchanged its forecast for Ukrainian economy growth in 2018 at 3% and expects that the same pace would be retained in 2019, the bank has said in a survey on its website. The bank said that large foreign exchange debt repayments by the public sector falling due in 2018-20 and the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections cycle in 2019 represent important risks to the growth outlook.
Continuation of the IMF (the International Monetary Fund) programme is uncertain due to the lacking commitment on the part of the authorities to meet key reform requirements, the bank said.
The EBRD said that the growth of Ukrainian economy remains subdued.
As reported, the World Bank remained unchanged its forecast for Ukraine’s GDP growth in 2018-2019 at 3.5% and 4% respectively.
However, the bank said that if reforms are delayed, growth could drop below current levels in an uncertain macroeconomic environment as financing risks rapidly increase and GDP growth could slow to 2%.
The IMF retained its forecast for Ukraine’s GDP growth in 2018 at 3.2%, while it reviewed downwards the forecast for 2019 to 3.3% from 4%.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) predicts that Ukraine’s GDP would accelerate in 2018 to 3.4% from 2.5% in 2017 and slow to 2.9% in 2019-2020.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) could sign one more agreement with public joint-stock company Ukrzaliznytsia in 2018 to provide funds to buy wagons. An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that Deputy Director of the EBRD for Ukraine Marina Petrov gave the information at the Ukrainian Infrastructure Forum 2018 in Kyiv.
“We hope that in the near term we will sign one more deal on the purchase of wagons,” she said, not specifying the details of the future agreement.
Petrov also said that the annual total volume of lending in the infrastructure area of Ukraine by the EBRD is up to EUR 300 million.
“We expect that EUR 150-300 million, which we usually make in the transport sector a year, we would make this year,” Petrov said.
As reported, Ukrzaliznytsia seeks to buy around 9,000 new wagons in 2018, including 5,180 from third parties. 3,400 out of 5,180 wagons to be bought from third parties some will be bought using the planned loan of the EBRD.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) plans to implement around 25-30 new financing projects in Ukraine, EBRD Director in Ukraine Sevki Acuner said at a press conference in Kyiv. The bank plans to step up its presence and it is always open for business, he said.
In turn, EBRD Director for Transport Sue Barrett said that three or four projects for EUR 100-200 million will be implemented in the transport and infrastructure spheres.
As reported, the EBRD in 2017 approved projects for EUR 800 million for Ukraine, which is 37% more than a year ago. In 2017, Ukraine became the third largest recipient of EBRD loans following Turkey, which received EUR 1.54 billion in loans, as well as Egypt with EUR 1.41 billion loans. To date, the bank has made a cumulative commitment of almost EUR 12.1 billion across some 400 projects since the start of its operations in the country in 1993.
The European Bank for Recontruction and Development (EBRD) would provide a loan to Nova Poshta, the leader in express delivry in Ukraine, for its development.
The two sides of the loan agreement confirmed their plans. The sum of the loan is not disclosed. The EBRD has not yet posted information about the loan on its website. According to the rules of the bank, it can decide not to publish information about a loan which is smaller than $20 million. The details of the agreement and development plans will be announced at a joint press conference on April 4, 2018. Nova Poshta, founded in 2001, is the leader in the local delivery market. The company’s network consists of more than 2,300 depots. In 2017, Nova Poshta delivered more than 145 million items.
