The European Investment Bank (EIB) agreed with the Ukrainian Government on a series of new financing operations, in particular, the sides signed an agreement on lending EUR 50 million to finance transport infrastructure improvements throughout the country and a grant of EUR 10 million to finance the implementation of the Ukraine Higher Education Project, the bank has said in a press release. “The projects signed today will result in faster and safer transport infrastructure, better academic facilities and more resources for higher education programmes, all of which will strengthen the country’s competitiveness,” the press service of the bank reported, citing EIB Vice-President Vazil Hudák.
The EUR 50 million EIB loan to improve connectivity in Ukraine and in the Eastern Neighbourhood provides support for transport projects expected to have significant positive local impacts. Road safety, connectivity, and traffic management and control projects are under consideration, with a view to contributing to the economic development of Ukraine.
The project’s first phase will focus on the development of intelligent transport system on national roads, the construction of a missing section of the northern by-pass around the city of Ternopil forming part of the extended TEN-T (Trans-European Transport Networks), and a number of multi-level railway crossings.
Furthermore, the project will support the development of future investment in railway connections between the European Union and Ukraine.
“The project is backed by a EUR 14 million EU grant for the Ternopil bypass investment and a EUR 1.85 million EU grant for project preparation and implementation. Both grants are being provided under the Neighbourhood Investment Platform (NIP),” the bank said.
Ukraine and the EIB also signed the EUR 10 million grant agreement under the multi-donor E5P fund that supports municipal investments in energy-efficiency and environmental projects in the Eastern Partnership countries.
“The grant will help finance the implementation of a Ukraine Higher Education Project, which the EIB is already supporting. Furthermore, the EIB concluded a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science for the preparation of a project to create several centres of excellence in the country,” the bank said.
The Ukraine Higher Education Project has already received a EUR 120 million loan from the EIB and EUR 30 million from Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO), the EIB said.
The grant will be used to finance, in particular, seven universities in the cities of Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Lviv, Poltava, Sumy and Vinnitsa in order to significantly reduce the energy consumption of their buildings with positive environmental impacts.
The project is also supported by a EUR 3 million EU grant from the Neighbourhood Investment Facility (NIF) to assist implementation arrangements, the bank said.
According to the report, the agreements were signed at the EU-Ukraine Association Council meeting held in Brussels on Monday.
Belarus and Ukraine may increase mutual commodity turnover to $5 billion in 2018, Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Lyashenko said. “Positive dynamics of trade and economic relations between our countries was observed in the past few years. We have managed to stop the fall that was in 2013 and resume growth,” Lyashenko said at a plenary session of the first forum of Belarusian and Ukrainian regions in Gomel on Friday.
The amount of bilateral trade reached $4.6 billion in 2017 and went up 20% against 2016, he said.
“We project commodity turnover at $5 billion this year [an 8.7% increase from 2017],” Lyashenko said.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko have decided to bring mutual commodity turnover to at least $8 billion in 2019.
Not only the governments of the two countries, but also the regions need to contribute to achieving this goal, Lyashenko said.
BELARUS, COMMODITY, GENERAL ELECTRIC, INFRASTRUCTURE, PROJECTS, TRANSPORTATION, TURNOVER, US
The modernization of the waste management infrastructure in accordance with the National Waste Management Strategy until 2030 requires more than EUR 3 billion of investments during 2019-2030, expert for waste management Mykola Doichinov has said at the conference “New Waste Management Policy is a Way to a Circular Economy” in Kyiv. According to the expert, calculations were carried out as part of the development of the National Waste Management Plan until 2030. According to the expert, as a result of the new waste management policy, tariffs for garbage disposal for the population will grow from EUR 0.6 per month in 2020 to EUR 1.4 per month in 2030.
At the same time, the expert stressed the implementation of the new strategy requires intensification of cooperation with international financial donors. At the same time, the state should also extend the responsibility of producers to cover the costs of garbage collection and sorting.
In addition, according to Doichinov, it is necessary to differentiate environmental tax on landfills that do not meet modern environmental requirements. As a result, the use of such landfills will become expensive, while the state will be able to send additional funds received from the tax for the renovation of these territories, the expert said.
It will be necessary to create infrastructure for vaccine production in Ukraine from scratch, while the state support program could contribute to this, Commercial Director of PJSC Borschahivsky Chemical and Pharmaceutical Plant Yevhen Sova believes. “Today it will be necessary to create infrastructure for vaccine production in Ukraine virtually from scratch. This is quite a long process, because we are talking about the construction of new workshops, the launch of additional production lines, passage of audits and confirmation of quality according to the standards,” he told Interfax-Ukraine.
At the same time, the expert noted that “Ukrainian pharmaceutical manufacturers can implement this.” “The technical equipment of domestic companies as a whole allows building new necessary infrastructure, paying special attention to the sites of quality control,” he said.
According to the expert, the state support program can become an impetus for domestic pharmaceutical producers and a signal for starting work on the organization of such production. “Such a program will contribute to the process as much as possible. It can include public-private partnership, tax-exempt status, simplified inspection procedures and other options, including subsidies,” he said.
CREATE, INFRASTRUCTURE, NECESSARY, PHARMACEUTICAL PLANT, VACCINE PRODUCTION
The Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure considers it necessary to invest in the construction and repair of runways at regional airports, Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan has said on the air of Channel Five. “A lot of airlines are ready to enter Ukrainian regional airports, but there are no conditions for that. There are no runways, there are no terminals that would accelerate servicing, while this is one of the key issues for low cost air carriers. Therefore we must invest in the runways as a state to get a highly competitive market and business for the state as well,” he said.
According to Omelyan, the development of airports will ensure a quick return on investment. Earlier, the minister said that the reconstruction of the airport in Odesa is to be completed in 2019. It is also planned to additionally allocate UAH 1.17 billion for the construction of a runway at Odesa airport. According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, the construction of a new runway will allow Odesa airport to accept heavier aircraft, including Boeing-767, which, in turn, can double passenger traffic.
