In response to a temporary, for a year, full trade liberalization by the EU, Ukraine is ready to abolish duties on European goods, said Deputy Minister of Economy – Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka.
“So that we can continue to talk about maintaining the zero-to-zero regime for longer than 12 months, we are ready to introduce such a mechanism now,” Kachka said during a meeting of the committee on finance, tax and customs policy on Thursday.
He added that Ukraine intends, first of all, to abolish duties on agricultural products from the EU.
The trade representative indicated that he sees the need to protect the Ukrainian market from goods from those countries with which there are no preferential terms of trade.
“The competition that we want to defend against is Turkey, China and other countries with which we do not have a preferential trade regime,” he said.
“Therefore, in order to work with the EU on a permanent customs-free trade regime, we want to take such a step. And in the context of our candidacy for the EU, this is very correct and appropriate,” Taras Kachka added.
“It is economically beneficial for us. The only industry where there is an economic imbalance is pork meat, but here it is more likely due to African swine fever, as well as cheese. We had a discussion on cheese whether the market should be protected. On the one hand, in In recent years, there has been an increase in cheese imports, mainly from Poland, but the total share of imported cheeses does not exceed 25%… There are no clear signs of harm for Ukrainian cheese producers,” Kachka explained.
Ukrenergo offers several options for distributing funds that will be received by the company from the sale at auctions of interstate cross-sections for commercial electricity exports to Europe, Head of the operator Volodymyr Kudrytsky said at a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday.
According to him, the potential supply of generating capacities of Ukraine, which can be released and directed to the export of electricity, is calculated in gigawatts. At the same time, according to the current legislation, the proceeds from Ukrenergo shall be directed to the development of interconnectors.
“Given the scale of potential income, we simply won’t be able to use so many funds in the short term. In such a situation, various mechanisms for socializing this money into the energy sector are possible. For example, we have debts on the balancing market, and we can pay off debts over a certain period of time proportionally to all market participants using this money,” Kudrytsky said.
The head of Ukrenergo said that energy companies would be able to stabilize their work by using the money received to prepare for the upcoming winter, purchase fuel and carry out repairs.
Transmission system operators in Continental Europe have responded positively to NPC Ukrenergo’s request to resume electricity exports from Ukraine, the company said.
“Today, the energy system of Ukraine is operating in the trial emergency synchronization mode with ENTSO-E, which means that export-import operations with European counterparties are not performed. However, both the Ukrainian and European sides are considering the possibility of a phased increase in export volumes, which would be mutually beneficial” , – reported on the Ukrenergo website on Wednesday.
Ukrainians have reduced the rate of importing cars from Europe on preferential terms: on average, 2.65 thousand cars entered per day in early June compared to 4-5 thousand in May on a weekday, said the deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance , tax and customs policy Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
“As of June 6, 140,310 cars were imported from us. The total amount of the tax rebate was provided for UAH 15.4 billion,” he said on the Telegram channel on Monday.
According to him, the largest number of such cars drove through the Volyn customs – almost 36 thousand, followed by Lviv customs, through which over 27 thousand cars drove in and Rivne customs – almost 14 thousand cars.
He added that, excluding benefits for cars, the budget received less revenue from duties and VAT on imports of UAH 9.17 billion.
As reported, from April 6, the Verkhovna Rada exempted the import of goods to Ukraine from import duties and VAT for single tax payers of the first and third groups, paying tax at a rate of 2% of turnover, and also established a simplified form of customs clearance. The deputies also completely exempted the import of vehicles by citizens, as well as subjects of the simplified system, from taxation.
At the same time, at the end of May, the Cabinet of Ministers registered in the Verkhovna Rada draft law No. 7418 on the return of all customs duties and VAT on imported goods, including cars. In particular, it is proposed to cancel the customs-free import of cars from July 1.
According to the State Border Service, over the past two weeks, about 18.6 thousand cars cross the western border of Ukraine in both directions every day.
The number of refugees from Ukraine registered for temporary protection or similar national protection schemes in Europe stood at 2.93 million as of the end of May 2022, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in its site.
According to his data collected from national governments, Poland has the most refugees with this status – 1 million 142.96 thousand, while 3.792 million people arrived in the country from Ukraine, according to the Polish border service, from the beginning of the war to June 2 , and in the opposite direction departed to Ukraine 1.795 million.
Following are the Czech Republic and Germany, where the number of refugees registered for temporary protection from Ukraine amounted to 361.42 thousand and 329.34 thousand, respectively.
The UN, referring to government data, indicates that in total in Germany, where Ukrainians are allowed to stay without registration until the end of August, 780,000 refugees from Ukraine were recorded. So, based on the data presented, less than half of them applied for temporary protection status in this country.
In the Czech Republic, the situation, according to UN information, is different: almost all arrivals applied for protection status – 361.42 thousand out of 361.56 thousand.
In the vast majority of other countries, the picture is similar to the Czech Republic: the statistics of registered refugees is completely or almost equal to the statistics of those who applied for protection status, which is probably due to the peculiarity of their registration. An exception, similar to Germany, is only Romania – 33.22 thousand with the status of 84.47 thousand refugees registered in the country, Estonia – 25.69 thousand out of 39.8 thousand and Italy – 97.31 thousand out of 125 .91 thousand
In addition to Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany and Italy, more than 50 thousand refugees from Ukraine have also registered for temporary protection status in Spain – 109.47 thousand, Slovakia – 78.57 thousand (out of 270 thousand net inflows across the border since the beginning of the war) , Austria – 68.75 thousand, the Netherlands – 60.02 thousand, Lithuania – 53.89 thousand and Switzerland – 50.1 thousand.
Following are Belgium – 44.65 thousand, France – 43.3 thousand, Portugal – 39.79 thousand, Sweden – 38 thousand, Great Britain – 37.4 thousand, Ireland – 32.42 thousand and Denmark – 27.21 thousand, as well as the above-mentioned Romania and Estonia.
From 10 to 25 thousand refugees from Ukraine with the status of temporary protection in Finland – 24.46 thousand, Latvia – 23.38 thousand, Hungary – 23.35 thousand, Norway – 16.71 thousand, Greece – 13, 4 thousand, Croatia – 13.37 thousand and Cyprus – 11.98 thousand.
In addition, in the UN statistics on those who received the status of temporary protection, Ukrainian refugees are represented in Slovenia – 6.94 thousand, Luxembourg – 5.4 thousand, Montenegro – 2.53 thousand, Iceland – 1 thousand, in Malta – 0.92 thousand, in Serbia and Kosovo – 0.62 thousand and Liechtenstein – 0.19 thousand.
In addition, the table contains data from Bulgaria, possibly entered with an error: according to them, 78.71 thousand refugees from Ukraine were recorded there, but 110.62 thousand received protection status.
The UN also indicated the countries in which refugees from Ukraine were recorded, but there is no data on their obtaining status: Moldova – 87.72 thousand, Turkey – 85 thousand, Georgia – 19.69 thousand, Azerbaijan – 5.06 thousand. , Albania – 1.34 thousand, North Macedonia – 1.13 thousand, Bosnia and Herzegovina – 0.36 thousand and Armenia – 0.3 thousand.
Separately, it is worth mentioning Russia and Belarus, the Ukrainian border with which was crossed by 1 million 41.1 thousand and 16.65 thousand people, respectively. The UN information indicates that in the Russian Federation all those who crossed the border were recorded, while in Belarus – less than half. There is no data on any status of these people, as well as data on crossing the border of Ukraine in the opposite direction.
In total, according to the UN, 6.98 million people have left Ukraine since the beginning of the war, while, according to the State Border Service of Ukraine, about 2.5 million have returned. According to this information, the net outflow since the beginning of the war can be estimated at about 4.5 million people, including to Russia – more than 1 million people.
Nissan Motor Ukraine, a subsidiary of the Japanese corporation Nissan Motor, has resumed deliveries of spare parts, motor oils and accessories to Ukraine from European warehouses, the company said in a press release.
“At the beginning of the resumption of operations of Nissan Motor Ukraine, the dealer network worked with spare parts that were delivered to Ukraine before February 24. But the high demand for maintenance and the efficient work of the Ukrainian representative office with the European head office of Nissan made it possible to arrange the supply of spare parts, motor oils, consumables and accessories in a much larger volume.
As reported, in April, Nissan Motor Ukraine resumed sales and maintenance of Nissan cars in the official dealer network.
The press service of the company also said that all recommended retail prices in the dealer network for spare parts, oils and consumables are fixed at the rate of UAH 33/EUR 1, deliveries of original accessories at fixed prices have begun.
“Nissan’s dealer network in Ukraine operates in almost all regions where there are dealers, even in Kharkiv, where until recently there were battles. The exceptions are Mykolaiv, Kherson, Kramatorsk and Mariupol,” the press service said.
In addition, for customers who have traveled abroad with their Nissan car, the pan-European warranty continues to be valid.
