Ukraine ranks fifth in the world in terms of honey production and is the leader in its production in Europe, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze’s office has said.
“Our country produces more than 100,000 tonnes per year, that is 6% of the world’s honey [output]. Today there are about 400,000 beekeepers with 4 million beehives in Ukraine,” it said on Facebook.
The office notes that the main producers of honey are eight regions: Vinnytsia, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv, Poltava, and Kirovohrad, which account for 70% of Ukrainian honey supplied to 35 countries.
“Most of the produce is exported by Ukraine to the United States, Germany, Poland, and France. In 2017, over 50,000 tonnes of honey was delivered to the EU countries alone (this includes over 5,000 tonnes within a duty-free quota),” the report said.
Public joint-stock company Farmak, the pharmaceutical company of Ukraine of the top three largest companies in the country, is mulling the possibility of acquiring a pharmaceutical company in Europe, acting CEO Volodymyr Kostiuk has said. “Now we are looking for a company which could be bought,” he told reporters.
Kostiuk said that this is the acquisition of an industrial company or a company with a product portfolio in Europe.
“Poland was the first step. Now we are looking at Hungary and Croatia. There is a concrete targeted profile. We are trying to meet it and select companies-candidates,” he said.
Kostiuk said that Farmak does not set the terms for acquiring the company and behaves thoughtfully regarding the cost of the asset.
“We are not in a hurry. We want to find the company that meets our plans as fully as possible,” he said.
In turn, Farmak Technical Director Andriy Hoi did not rule out that production of cancer treating medicines will be organized at the facilities of Farmak.
“These are very expensive medicines. They have a high production cost. These are highly active medications. Having several cancer treating medicines in our portfolio, including from post-Soviet solutions, we are working with leading Western companies regarding the localization of production of these medicines. We are thinking on starting a separate production line in the medium term outlook and a separate line of highly active medications,” he said.
