Ukraine in the memorandum to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the new Stand-By Arrangement has undertook by the end of August to review and approve all heating tariffs, linking them to the cost of gas and associated costs, including capital investments.
“We have eliminated the cap on household heating tariffs by revoking cabinet resolution No. 560 of June 26, 2019. We will ensure that, by the end of August 2020, all heating tariffs under the jurisdiction of both the NEURC (the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission of Ukraine) and local authorities are reviewed and officially enacted to fully reflect gas and non-gas costs (including capex),” the document says.
“Starting with the 2020/2021 heating season, heating tariffs will be reviewed and set at least once per year before the start of the heating season to ensure that changes in gas and non-gas costs (including capex) are adequately reflected in heating tariffs. To that end, prior to the start of the 2020/2021 heating season, we will rescind cabinet resolution No. 1082 of December 24, 2019, which allows for the asymmetric changes in heating bills without the need to address heating tariffs when the price of input gas changes. In order to mitigate the risk of future arrears we will develop in consultation with the World Bank mechanisms to provide buffers for district heating companies to deal with the volatility in the wholesale gas price,” according to the report.
“By the end of June we will legislate an October 1, 2020 deadline for all new utility service contracts incorporating the revised heating tariffs to be concluded,” it says.
Kormotech LLC (Lviv region), a large Ukrainian manufacturer of cat and dog food, has launched first shipments of its products to Spain and Italy. The company said in its press release on Friday that by the end of the year it plans to export 1.5 tonnes of premium and super premium pet food to each of these countries.
“The first shipment to Italy was made on Wednesday, June 3. Dry and wet super premium food for cats and dogs under the brand Optimeal will be sold in the online shop Healthy Pet Italy. The company will sell its products in Spain under two Ukrainians brands: Optimeal and Club 4 Paws,” Kormotech said.
Kormotech LLC is the leading Ukrainian producer of feed for cats and dogs. The company exports products to 31 countries, including the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Poland, Turkey, Iran and Chile.
The ultimate beneficiaries of Kormotech are Olena and Rostyslav Vovk.
Top ten largest pharmacy chains will consolidate up to 70% of the medicine market in the coming years, Director General of Teva Ukraine pharmaceutical company Dmytro Spitsyn has said. “The pharmacy channel is quickly and aggressively consolidating. Now the 10 largest chains occupy about 55% of the market. I think that in a few years this share will grow to 70%. Crises accelerate the absorption process,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Spitsyn also predicted that the lockdown crisis caused by COVID-19 in the pharmaceutical market “will accelerate the mergers and acquisitions that have been going on before and accelerate the processes of concentration and consolidation in the distribution channel.”
“This is also quite expected, because who was rich, he became richer during the crisis. Large companies will continue the process of acquisitions,” he said.
According to Spitsyn, at present, “the distribution market is already quite consolidated enough, because three companies occupy 90% of the market, including almost 80% of the market occupied by two companies.”
According to SMD, the Teva pharmaceutical company, according to the results of 2019, occupies the eighth position in the retail segment of the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market. Its share was 2.7% in monetary terms.
State-owned Ukreximbank (Kyiv) is considering a scenario to repurchase its eurobonds from the market with their replacement with cheaper and longer-term resources, chairman of the financial institution Yevhen Metsger has said.
“As one of the working scenarios, the repurchase of our eurobonds from the market is considered, the rate at which is about 10% in dollars, and replacing them with cheaper and longer-term resources from the International Monetary Fund, he said.
In addition, Metsger said that the bank is holding a dialogue on additional capitalization with the Finance Ministry as a representative of the owner and with the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
“Formally, the management will first discuss the situation and forecast of activities with the supervisory board, then ask it to apply for additional capitalization to the government. For the entire cycle, we assume that it will take us time until the end of the second quarter,” he said.
The chairman of the board of Ukreximbank said that the bank needs additional capital to enable it to develop.
He said that without additional capital, the bank will also not be able to provide the necessary support during a pandemic to a number of clients and key sectors of the economy.
“To rely on itself, make a profit, then invest it in net worth is a long way to go, given that the bank’s financial results for 2019 do not allow to reinvest profits in capital. Our former management declared over UAH 600 million of income. However, in reality, I am afraid that we will get a much more modest figure,” the banker said.
According to him, the bank now has quite negative dynamics in operating income, resulting in, there is no way to quickly accumulate financial results to cover one-time effects, and it will take time for the new management team to reproduce the working business model and reverse the trend.
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According to the pessimistic forecasts, the market for pet food may fall to 20% by the end of 2020, CEO of Kormotech Rostyslav Vovk said. “The experience of previous crises shows that according to the pessimistic scenario, the market for finished food in Ukraine can go down to 20%,” he told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to Vovk, in the field of animal care, the crisis becomes considerable in one and a half or two years after its beginning. He said that over the past five years, the food market for cats and dogs has grown by 15% annually. The market volume amounted to 122,000 tonnes in 2019.
“This year it will not grow in full size, but it will not go down significantly either, as feed is a product that is difficult to quickly replace (with another feed or food from the table). At the same time, we are predicting, based on the results of previous crises, that demand for keeping expensive pedigreed dogs and cats will decrease slightly. This means that kennels will become less involved in breeding and this will certainly lead to a decrease in feed consumption,” the CEO of Kormotech said.
According to him, the population will have significantly less money by the autumn, and if product prices begin to rise, pet owners can not only buy less, but also look for a cheaper alternative.
“Customers who generally preferred products of the economy segment are more likely to start buying less, adding water to dry and cereal to a wet diet,” Vovk said.
The CEO of Kormotech said that the demand for the company’s products grew by 30% in the second half of March, and as of the second week of April began to return to normal range.
“We assume that the owners of the animals made feed stocks in the same way as other products. In small retail outlets, usually located near residential buildings, sales grew by 30% (the share of this sales channel for our products was 15%), online stores by 45% (the share of this channel is 5%). Pet stores are key point of sale, showed an increase of 32% (the share of this channel is 55%),” Vovk said.
Kormotech exports products to about 20 countries, including France, Estonia, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Poland. The facilities of the company include two plants for the manufacture of dry and wet pet food. The company produces products for cats and dogs under its own brands Optimeal, Club 4 Paws (Meow! and Woof! trademarks) and in private label.
The ultimate beneficiaries of Kormotech are Olena and Rostyslav Vovk.
The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has decided that Ukrainian producers of thermally processed products from poultry, pork and eggs will be able to obtain permits for exporting products to the Singapore market, the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine said.
“Any crises also bring new opportunities. The access of Ukrainian goods to the Singapore market will help our entrepreneurs increase exports, despite the coronavirus [COVID-19] crisis,” the Foreign Ministry’s press service said, citing Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Friday.
The Foreign Minister said that global markets and chains of goods supply are currently being transformed due to a pandemic, and Ukraine is able to use the changes to its advantage, first of all, revealing the hidden potential of exports to Asian markets.
Detailed explanations of the terms of export to Singapore can be obtained from the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection.
The Foreign Ministry said that Ukrainian exporters who use the new opportunities should fill the form of the Ukrainian exporter from the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Singapore (it concerns only the export of Ukrainian goods to the markets of ASEAN countries: Brunei, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand) at the link: https://goo.gl/forms/wL5iAZEOk82bfv3n2.
