Onur, one of the largest road construction and repair companies in Ukraine, reduced the scope of work by 90 percent in 2022 because of the war and froze the implementation of almost all large-scale road infrastructure projects, Onur Group Ukraine chief coordinator Emre Karaahmetoglu said in a partner interview with NV.
“Despite the war, we still managed to complete some objects: we finished the roads in Khmelnytsky region and sections of the Kiev-Kharkiv highway, which we had been working on since 2019. Both projects were financed at the expense of the World Bank,” Karaahmetoglu noted.
He also said that since the beginning of the war, the company has been expanding accesses to customs points in the west of the country, has been building a new Irpen bridge near Kiev since late May, and is also working in the Kharkiv region after its de-occupation, where it is conducting emergency work to rebuild roads.
Karaahmetoglu added that the company recently won a tender to build three bridges in the Kiev region, which is financed by the British export credit agency UK Export Finance.
According to him, if it were not for the war, the company would have opened a new hotel in the center of Lviv, for which a building was purchased last year and reconstruction began. “After the war, we will quickly complete work on this project,” he pointed out.
The chief coordinator also said that Onur Group had already acquired several land plots in Lviv and Lviv region during the war and was thinking about what projects could be implemented.
Karaahmetoglu noted that the company’s other investment plans in Ukraine include mining, green energy, where Onur already has 150 megawatts from solar plants, and the agricultural sector with processing. “We have a small, about 5 thousand hectares of land in western Ukraine. We plan to double it. And then engage in processing of agricultural products”, – he specified.
The representative of Onur added that before the war the equipment for the development of sand pits in Lviv region and lines for production of bridge beams at the concrete plant in the west of the country were made for the company orders and said that they would be installed immediately after the war.
According to him, Onur also intends to complete such large-scale projects as the construction of the Zaporozhye bridge and the reconstruction of the runway at Dnipro airport after Ukraine’s victory, as well as initiating a project to build the Stryy-Mukachevo toll road, already developing technical documentation for it.
“There is a future for toll roads, they will be in demand after the war is over. In my opinion, this project should be engaged now”, noted Karaahmetoglu.
The representative of the company specified that the fleet of machinery in Ukraine is about 4 thousand units, as well as 20 asphalt plants, 15 concrete plants, 15 enterprises for the production of foundation, but several plants were lost during the war. Onur Group Ukraine currently employs about 2,000 people.
According to the company’s Facebook, it operates in 9 sectors, last year it performed road works in Moldova.
Onur Group is ranked 82nd in the top 250 largest contractors in the world by leading American publication ENR 2022.
In Ukraine during last two weeks, 19-31 December, 5.39 thousand deals with agricultural land lots have been concluded, which is 1.9 times more than during the previous period of 5-19 December, while the area of sold land lots has doubled – up to 11.04 thousand hectares.
As reported on the website of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food on Tuesday, during the period from July 1, 2021 to December 31, 2022, in which the land market operates in the country, a total of 142.94 thousand transactions for land lots with a total area of 322.19 thousand hectares were conducted.
According to the Ministry, in the period from 19-31 December daily on average there were 385 transactions with agricultural land with a total area of 0,79 thousand hectares / day, while on 5-19 December these figures were 203 transactions on 0,39 thousand hectares / day, and for November 21 – 5 December – 214 transactions on 0,42 thousand hectares / day respectively.
The specified figure is still significantly lower than before the Russian invasion: according to the latest pre-war data of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, during the period from 11 to 18 February in Ukraine daily on average there were 621 land deals with a total area of 1.65 thousand ha.
Kharkiv region is in the lead by the total area of agricultural land sold with an indicator of 39.47 thousand hectares. Dnipropetrovsk region is followed by 28.95 thousand hectares, Poltava region – 26.34 thousand hectares, Kirovograd region – 26.12 thousand hectares and Kherson region – 21.03 thousand hectares.
It is specified that during these two weeks most of all agricultural land was sold in Dnipropetrovsk region (1.25 thousand ha), as well as in Khmelnytskyi (1.19 thousand ha), Vinnitsa (1.07 thousand ha), Poltava (1.05 thousand ha) and Kirovograd regions (805 ha).
According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, since the beginning of a full-scale Russian invasion in Ukraine, 41.98 thousand hectares of agricultural land transactions with a total area of 77.69 thousand hectares have been concluded. Most of the land was sold in Khmelnytsky, Vinnitsky, Poltava, Kirovograd and Dnipropetrovsk regions during the war.
At that by December 31, 2022, the average price per hectare of agricultural land has increased by 11% compared to December 15 – up to 52.46 thousand UAH/ha from 47.28 thousand UAH/ha.
As it was reported, the market of agricultural land in Ukraine began to work on July 1, 2021. At the first stage of the reform only citizens of the country got the right to buy and sell agricultural land, one individual will be able to hold no more than 100 hectares.
The right to purchase agricultural land from January 1, 2024 will be granted to legal entities created in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine, and the ultimate beneficiary of one or more legal entities will be able to consolidate through them a total of not more than 10 thousand hectares.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has signed law No. 2195 on amending the Land Code of Ukraine and the law “On land lease” regarding the sale of state and municipal land plots or rights to them at electronic auctions, the parliament’s website said on Thursday.
Law No. 2195, which the parliament adopted on May 18, ensures publicity and transparency of the sale and transfer for use of land plots of state and communal property in the electronic system of auctions conducted on the Internet in the format of an auction in real time.
The document specifies that land tenders will be held in accordance with the agreement between the organizer of the tenders and the operator of the electronic platform. The decision to hold a land auction will be made by their organizer, indicating the starting price of the lot, the term and other conditions for the use of the land plot, as well as the person authorized by him to conclude the relevant contract.
The amount of remuneration to the operator of the electronic platform, the procedure for its payment and return, as well as other details of the organization of land auctions will be determined by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in the future in accordance with the established procedure.
Based on the results of the auction, a contract of purchase and sale, lease, development rights or inheritance of the land will be concluded with the participant who offered the highest price (price offer) for the land plot or the highest payment for its use.
As reported, according to the explanatory note to the document, the adoption of Law No. 2195 will optimize the legislation on the sale and transfer of land plots of state and municipal property for use, improve and speed up the mechanisms and procedures for its sale and transfer, increase the economic efficiency of auctions and increase receipts in state and local budgets.
The government has proposed that the Verkhovna Rada approves methods for calculating minimum tax applicability for land plots under cultivation being in so-called “domestic offshore,” for which taxes are not paid.
The formula for calculating the size of the tax is included in the so-called resource bill No. 5600 with amendments to the Tax Code on ensuring balanced budget receipts. The document was registered in parliament.
The document proposes to supplement Article 381 of the Tax Code with a formula according to which minimum tax applicability depends on the general standard pecuniary value of the land plot and the period during which the land plot was owned by the business entity.
The formula looks like this:
MTA = SPV × A × F × M / 12
Where:
MTA – minimum tax applicability;
SPV – standard pecuniary value of 1 hectare of a land plot;
A is the area of the land plot in hectares;
M is the number of calendar months during which the land plot was owned, leased or used on other terms by the taxpayer;
F – factor equal to 0.05.
According to the document, for a land plot that has not been evaluated it will be assessed as 1 hectare of arable land in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea or in the region, taking into account the indexation factor determined by the Code in the prescribed manner.
For sole proprietors, fourth group payers under the simplified tax system, the factor will be 0.025.
According to the bill, the minimum tax applicability is determined for allotments (allotments for construction); allotment cooperatives (societies) for vegetable growing and gardening; reserve lands; unclaimed plots at the disposal of local governments; sites exposed to radioactive contamination after the Chornobyl disaster in the exclusion zones.
“If an individual owns or uses one or more land plots, the total size of which does not exceed the size specified in Subparagraph 24 of Paragraph 1 of Article 165 of this Code, the minimum tax applicability for these land plots is not determined,” the authors of the bill said in the promulgated document.
When transferring to lease and sublease, inheritance or other use of land, the minimum tax applicability is determined for tenants and users in the manner prescribed in the Tax Code.
Ukrainian state and private notaries in 2020 certified 217,810 contracts for the sale of land plots, which is 27.8% more than in 2019.
As reported on the website of the Ukrainian Agrarian Association, an increase in the number of contracts provoked the adoption on March 31, 2020 of a law on the conditions for the turnover of agricultural land, although this law will come into force only on July 1, 2021.
According to the association, in the fourth quarter of last year, almost 75,000 sale contracts were certified, while in the third – about 60,000, and in the second – about 45,000.
As the association said, a similar situation is with donation agreements, the total number of which in the past year, according to notaries, increased by 9.6%, to 55,980 and in the fourth quarter the number was close to 20,000.
The association said that in 2019 the number of contracts for the purchase and sale of land plots increased by 12.9%, and in 2018 – by only 1.2%, donation contracts – decreased by 1.1% (in 2018 it increased by 3.1%).
As reported, at the first stage of the law on the turnover of agricultural land – until December 31, 2023 – it will be allowed to sell land plots only to citizens of Ukraine in the amount of no more than 100 hectares per person, as well as exclusion for public needs and exchange of land plots with a difference of the normative monetary evaluation of no more than 10%.
