The first batch of the CoronaVac vaccine produced by China’s Sinovac and purchased with the state budgetary funds will be delivered to Ukraine before the end of March, Ukrainian Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said.
“I had a conversation with the Chinese side, among others, with the Chinese ambassador to Ukraine directly, and according to the supplier, we must receive the vaccine, the first batches, by the end of March. These are 700,000 doses under the contract,” he said on the air of the Freedom of Speech (Svoboda Slova) program on ICTV on Friday evening.
CoronaVac will be used for vaccination immediately after its first batch is delivered, he said.
“It is an issue that concerns the supplies of all vaccines without an exception. As you can see, supplies of absolutely all vaccines of all manufacturers are being delayed all the time,” he said.
The volume of construction work decreased by 12.8% in Ukraine in March 2020 compared to March 2019, whereas in February 2020 by 3.8% compared to February 2019.
The State Statistics Service said that the volume of construction work has reached UAH 26.1 billion from the beginning of 2020. In general, that indicator decreased by 5.5% in the first quarter of 2020, compared to the same period in 2019.
The statistics service said that the indicator increased by 28.2% in March, compared to February (according to seasonally adjusted data, it decreased by 1.8%), while compared to January 2019, that indicator decreased by 2.7%.
The statistics service said in March 2020 that the volume of work decreased in all sectors of construction, except non-residential one in March 2019. Thus, according to unadjusted data, the reduction in volumes in residential construction amounted to 25%, in the construction of engineering structures by 12.4%. The growth in work in the construction of non-residential buildings amounted to 1%.
The share of new construction to the total volume of finished construction works amounted to 46.7%, repair amounted to 25.8%, reconstruction and technical re-equipment amounted to 27.5%.
Decrease in the volume of construction work was recorded in 13 regions, in particular in Kirovohrad (by 50.5%, to UAH 219.3 million), Odesa (by 27.8%, to UAH 1.51 billion) and Zhytomyr (by 20.2%, to UAH 267.6 million) in January-March 2020, compared with the same period in 2019.
The largest growth in construction work was recorded in Chernihiv (by 22.9%, to UAH 339.2 million), Lviv (by 15.4%, to UAH 2.03 billion) and Rivne (by 12%, to UAH 356.5 million) regions in the first quarter of 2020. In Kyiv, the volume of construction work performed during that period decreased by 8.3% and amounted to UAH 6.46 billion.
The statistical data are given excluding the occupied territory of Crimea and the temporarily occupied territories in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Electricity consumption in Ukraine in January-March 2020, taking into account in-process losses in power grids, fell by 5.6% (by 2.366 billion kWh) compared to January-March 2019, to 39.644 billion kWh, the Ministry of Energy and Environment Protection has told Interfax-Ukraine.
Excluding in-process losses, electricity consumption over the period decreased 3.6% (by 1.179 billion kWh), to 31.965 billion kWh.
The country’s industry, excluding in-process losses, reduced electricity consumption by 5.8%, to 12.429 billion kWh. In particular, metallurgical industry consumed 6.746 billion kWh (9.5% less compared to January-March 2019), fuel industry some 849.9 million kWh (6.6% less), machine building industry some 959.9 million kWh (14.2% less), chemical and petrochemical some 2.029 billion kWh (24.2% more), food and processing some 1.088 billion kWh (1.2% less), construction materials some 483.4 million kWh (2.1% less), and others some 1.283 billion kWh (0.8% down).
In addition, agricultural enterprises consumed 854.8 million kWh (4.2% less), transport some 1.708 billion kWh (6.8% less), and developers some 282.5 million kWh (7.6% down).
In January-March 2020, the country’s population consumed 10.407 billion kWh (0.9% up), households some 4.138 billion kWh (6.7% down), and other non-industrial consumers some 2.145 billion kWh (1.3% down).
The share of industry in total electricity consumption in January-March 2020 fell from 39.8% to 38.9%, and the share of the population grew to 32.6% from 31.1%.
In March 2020, electricity consumption, taking into account in-process losses, decreased by 7% (by 948.2 million kWh) compared to the same month of 2019, to 12.611 billion kWh, excluding in-process losses it fell by 3.9% (417.8 million kWh), to 10.374 billion kWh.
Ukraine will switch to summer daylight saving time in the early hours of March 29, 2020.
“We inform that according to Cabinet of Ministers resolution No. 509 of May 13, 1996 on the procedure for calculating time on Ukrainian territory in the territory of Ukraine on March 29, 2020 at 03.00 Kyiv time the summer daylight saving time is introduced with clocks moved one hour forward,” the department of the technical regulation and metrology of the Ministry for Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine.
