On May 21, Italian Ambassador to Ukraine Carlo Formosa and Artur Lorkowski, Director of the Energy Community Secretariat, signed an agreement on a new contribution from Italy in the amount of EUR 10 million for repair and reconstruction work in Ukraine’s energy sector.
This was announced by Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Denys Shmyhal following a meeting with Lorkovsky and partners on a Telegram channel on Thursday.
“Prior to this, Italy had already contributed EUR13 million to the Energy Support Fund. We are grateful to Italy,” he noted.
According to Shmyhal, the parties paid special attention to mechanisms for attracting additional contributions to Ukraine’s Energy Support Fund as a tool for strengthening energy resilience.
“We also discussed opportunities for international businesses to invest in Ukraine’s energy sector. “The launch of updated auctions for the construction of new power generation capacity in Ukraine is an important signal to the market; we can more broadly attract international investors to the development of new capacity,” he said.
Ukraine is also preparing to present these and other opportunities at the URC conference in Gdańsk in June.
“We agreed to jointly develop mechanisms for mitigating and insuring against military risks for such investments,” the First Deputy Prime Minister added.
As reported, as of the end of April, Ukraine’s foreign partners had announced additional contributions to the Energy Support Fund totaling approximately EUR 100 million.
In total, as of early April, the Energy Support Fund of Ukraine had received grant funds totaling nearly EUR 1.854 billion from 37 foreign sponsors from 26 partner countries and three international organizations.
Police investigators exposed the scheme of stealing budget funds during the repair work of a kindergarten in one of the cities of Kharkiv region, reports the press service of the Kharkiv regional Prosecutor’s office.
“This scam in 2021 was organized by the mayor of the locality…. Director of the firm (which carried out repairs) and two of his employees … All four perpetrators are reported on suspicion on the fact of seizure of other people’s property by abuse of their official position, committed on a large scale by an organized group (part 5 of article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), and on the fact of official forgery, committed by an organized group (part 3 of article 28, part 1 of article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine)”, – stated in the message.
The name of the city is not specified in the message.
According to the investigation, during the execution of works in the reporting documentation were entered false data regarding the cost of used construction materials and the volume of work. In particular, the documents included works that were actually performed by employees of the municipal utility company of the city Council.
Thus, the members of the group managed to seize almost UAH 400 thousand of budget funds.
The money supply in Ukraine in October 2020 increased 2%, to UAH 1.757 trillion, according to preliminary data of monetary statistics on the website of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
According to the data, the monetary base (reserve funds) over the past month grew by 2.4%, to UAH 581.722 billion.
The central bank also said that off-bank funds (M0) in October also expanded by 2.2%, to UAH 485.906 billion.
According to the NBU, the deposit portfolio of banks over the past month increased 1.9%, to UAH 1.268 trillion, in particular, in national currency it grew by 2.6% (to UAH 764.932 billion), and in foreign currency by 0.5% (to UAH 502.980 billion).
At the same time, the loan portfolio of banks in October decreased 2%, to UAH 958.34 billion, including in the national currency – 1.8% (to UAH 595.417 billion) and in foreign currency – 2.3% (to UAH 362.923 billion ), the bank said.
According to the central bank, net forex reserves narrowed by 2.7% in October, to $15.368 billion.
The amount of money transfers to Ukraine using international payment systems in 2018 was eight times more than the sum of money sent from Ukraine.
According to a posting on the website of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the share of transfers in money transfer systems to Ukraine was 17% from the United States, 13% from Israel, 9% from Russia, 8% from Italy, 7% from Poland, and 46% from other countries (221 countries).
In 2018, both residents and nonresidents used money transfer systems to transact the following transfers: $2.301 billion in equivalent to Ukraine (28.28% of total transfers); $294 million in equivalent abroad (3.61% of total transfers) and UAH 150.53 billion or $5.541 billion in equivalent within Ukraine (68.11% of the total value of transfers).
These data do not include information on transfers transacted by banks, card payment schemes and post offices.
Domestic transfers in money transfer systems over 2018 has increased by 24.3% year-over-year (in 2017 domestic transfers accounted for over UAH 120.5 billion or $4.456 billion in equivalent). Most of domestic transfers (92%) are transacted in systems established by nonbank institutions.
Money supply in Ukraine in August 2018 increased by 0.3%, to UAH 1.233 trillion, such preliminary data of monetary statistics are posted on the website of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
The country’s monetary base expanded 0.3% last month, to UAH 421.89 billion.
The NBU said that off-bank cash in August shrank by 0.6%, to UAH 344.17 billion, while ending stock on deposits grew by 0.9%, to UAH 888.66 billion.
Since early 2018, money supply grew by 2% and monetary base – by 5.7%, while off-bank cash rose by 3.5%.
