Ovostar Union, a leading egg and egg products manufacturer in Ukraine, supplied 466,000 eggs or 40 tonnes to Israel in April, which is 0.003% of its monthly production volume, the company’s press service has told Interfax-Ukraine.
“Israel is a country with high requirements for safety and quality of food, and we are proud that our products passed the control of the Israeli veterinary service, and we have the opportunity to supply eggs to this market. Israel is currently experiencing a shortage of this product, and, in addition to Ukraine, buys eggs in other European countries. On April 1, 2020, the Israeli Veterinary Service allowed producers of table eggs from Ukraine to export them to the country,” the company said.
Ovostar Union said that the company has been consistently implementing its export development strategy since 2015. Ovostar products are delivered to 55 countries, including to the markets of the EU, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa. The export volume in 2019 amounted to an average of 43 million units per month, in 2018 – 48 million units per month.
Ovostar, citing the State Statistics Service, reported that the production of industrial eggs in Ukraine is growing annually, and in January-February 2020, egg production by specialized enterprises increased 8.6% compared to the same period in 2019.
“At the same time, the volume of the domestic market, taking into account the significant share of eggs collected by households, remains almost unchanged. The egg is one of the key export goods of the agricultural sector of Ukraine. With an average monthly production of 780 million pieces by poultry farms in general, 190 million eggs are exported, making our country one of the key players in the global egg industry,” the company said.
Speaking about the company’s work during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Ukraine, Ovostar said that since the introduction of quarantine restrictions, the company, despite the additional costs of ensuring sanitary standards at enterprises, exchange rate fluctuations and rising cost of feed, has not changed selling prices for packaged products delivered to retail chains.
Polish Ambassador in Kyiv Bartosz Cichocki and his Israeli counterpart Joel Lion have said that honoring people who “actively propagated ethnic cleansings” is insulting and are expecting the Kyiv City State Administration (KCSA) and the Lviv Regional Council to join “efforts to seek the truth” in this issue. “We are seriously concerned and saddened that representatives of Ukrainian authorities of various levels, including the Lviv Regional Council and the KCSA, still mark historical events and honor persons who must be condemned once and for all,” the ambassadors said in a joint statement.
They thus are alarmed by the fact on December 24, the Lviv Regional Council issued a resolution, which implies the allocation of public funds in 2020 to honor the memory of one of the leaders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN, which is banned in Russia) Andriy Melnyk, as well as writer and statesman Ivan Lypa and his son and public figure Yuriy Lypa.
“In addition, on January 1, the Kyiv City State Administration (KCSA) placed a banner with a portrait of Stepan Bandera on its building. Remembering our innocent brothers and sisters killed in 1939-1945 on the occupied Polish territories, which are currently part of Ukraine, we, the ambassadors of Poland and Israel, believe that honoring people, who have actively propagated ethnic purges, is an insult, and leads to the opposite result in the fight against anti-Semitism and in the reconciliation process between our peoples,” the statement reads.
In this connection, the ambassadors are expecting the Lviv Regional Council and the KCSA to join the dialogue seeking the truth.
“On our part, we stand ready to promote better cooperation between various institutions in Israel and Poland, including with Yad Vashem and with the Institute of National Remembrance,” the statement said.
As reported, a procession with torches marking Bandera’s 111th birth anniversary took place in downtown Kyiv in the evening on January 1.
According to media reports, about 1,500 attended the event.
About 2,000 attended the torch march that marked Bandera’s birth anniversary in 2019.
The Israeli Embassy in Ukraine will resume its work on November 1 after a strike announced earlier in protest against the actions of the Israeli Ministry of Finance and the resulting funding problems.
“Our fight has not ended, it has only been temporarily suspended by court order. Tomorrow, on Friday, November 1, we will resume the work of the embassy on an ongoing basis,” the embassy reported on Twitter on Thursday.
The Israeli Consulate in Toronto (Canada) reported on Twitter that Israeli diplomatic agencies around the world were resuming their work. “Our Consulate, as well as other Israeli missions around the world, are back to work. Negotiations between MFA employees and the Israeli Ministry of Finance will continue,” it says.
As reported, on October 30, Israeli diplomatic missions in Ukraine and around the world announced their suspension of work in early hours of Wednesday due to a labor dispute with the Israeli Ministry of Finance. A message was posted on Facebook of the Israeli Consulate in Toronto that the diplomatic mission was on strike.
The Times of Israel said that all Israeli embassies and consulates around the world shut down early Wednesday as diplomats and military attachés went on strike in a long-simmering dispute with the Finance Ministry over expense stipends paid to envoys. The move, coordinated by the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry and the Histadrut Labor Federation, came after the Treasury reportedly backtracked on previous understandings and said it would force the envoys to pay back thousands of dollars that they had been reimbursed for expenses, it said.
The dispute is over expense stipends paid to Israeli diplomats and Defense Ministry envoys stationed abroad that are meant to cover a wide array of expenses, from hosting events at an ambassador’s residence to transport costs.
At the same time, Israeli media say that diplomats have been complaining about low salaries for several years. They also expressed dissatisfaction with the reduction in the cost of the work of diplomatic missions. In 2014, the Israeli union of Histadrut managed to agree with representatives of the Israeli Ministry of Finance to raise salaries for diplomats. However, according to diplomats, this arrangement has not been fully implemented yet.
The closure came into effect at 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning Israel time. Thus, not a single Israeli citizen who is abroad and finds himself in a difficult situation will be able to receive consular assistance, the newspaper notes.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine is awaiting ratification of the free trade agreement (FTA) by the new Knesset after the elections on September 17. “We expect the ratification of the free trade agreement by the new Knesset after the September 17 elections. This will allow increasing the volume of trade between our countries,” Zelensky wrote on his Facebook page on Monday evening following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The president also noted that Ukraine and Israel had signed four important documents that will expand contacts between the countries in education, culture and sports. In addition, close cooperation in the agricultural sector is expected.
“I invited Israeli companies to come to work in Ukraine: to build roads and infrastructure, invest in medicine, education, energy saving and, of course, in IT. In the next five years we will grow rapidly, so Ukraine today is the most attractive place for strategic investors,” Zelensky said.
