Ukraine has imported power generators and generator equipment worth $60m over the last two weeks, First Deputy Economy Minister Denis Kudin said.
“The second item of imports for the last two weeks were generators and generator equipment. Second only to fuel. We’ve imported $60 million worth of such equipment in those two weeks, and judging by what we know from the companies, the volume of generators that are on the road waiting for delivery in the second half of December, January, February and March is just off the charts,” he said during a discussion at the Center for Economic Strategy on Thursday.
Kudin added that, according to his data, Lviv and Kyiv are compensating businesses for 75 percent of the cost of generators.
Import of goods to Ukraine in % to the previous period in 2021 and 2022
SSC of Ukraine
Imports of titanium ores and concentrates fell to 196 tonnes and $115,000 in the ten months of 2022, from 912 tonnes and $889,000 a year previously. Exports grew 38.9% to 273,409 tonnes and 10.5% to $111.27 million.
Bauxite imports fell 77.4% to 945,311 tonnes and 74.8% to $48.119 million.
Imports of nickel ores and concentrates fell 66.5% to 341,268 tonnes and 68.6% to $15.234 million, and manganese ores 60% to 135,069 tonnes and 57.5% to $17.976 million.
Ukraine did not re-export bauxite or export nickel and manganese ores in the ten months of 2022.
Imports of aluminum and its products fell 29.2% to $279.276 million, nickel and nickel products 43% to $55.795 million, zinc and its products 59.9% to $30.490 million, lead and its products 63.8% to $2.65 million and tin and its products 25% to $2.894 million.
Exports of aluminum and its products fell 39.1% to $83.556 million, nickel fell 72.5% to $1.086 million and lead 69.5% to $9.769 million, however zinc exports rose to $1.321 million from $254,000 and tin to $421,000 from $154,000.
Ukrainian imports of copper and copper products plummeted 62% year-on-year in January-October to $54.424 million, Ukrainian media reported, quoting State Customs Service data.
Copper exports fell 56.1% to $76.95 million.
The list of import goods that will be imported to Ukraine without payment of import duty and VAT for winter included: electric generating sets, transformers, electric batteries, equipment for switching or protection of electric circuits or for connection to electric circuits for voltage over 1000 V, consoles, panels, distribution boards, equipment and devices for water filtration or treatment.
The Economy Ministry said Friday that the relevant Cabinet of Ministers decree No. 1260 to expand the list of preferential imports in connection with the Covid epidemic was made public on the government website on Friday.
The Ministry of Economy clarified that the relevant tax changes were initiated on the instructions of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
According to the Ministry, the abolition of VAT and import duties will reduce prices and saturate the Ukrainian market with goods that will help citizens and businesses to survive periodic power outages this winter season.
At the same time, according to deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Economic Development Dmitriy Kisilevskyy, even before the abolition of import duties and VAT on such goods, the government should have gathered domestic producers of this equipment and provided them with priority access to credit 5-7-9%, canceled the duties on components and raw materials and formed a reserve fund of equipment and materials.
“The government is implementing the abolition of import restrictions solely on finished products – without components and raw materials, not to mention other steps. As a result, a generator produced in Ukraine will, by definition, be 20-30% more expensive than an imported one,” the MP wrote in a column in NV.
According to him, in the absence of such steps, the adopted import privileges are an unbalanced policy.
As the MP specified to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, among Ukrainian producers of such products are, in particular, Power Generation LLC, Geko-Center, Compressors International, Hyatt Ukraine, Darex-Energo and Equiwes.
