International grain trader Qortia AG (Switzerland) has resumed grain shipments from Ukraine’s deepwater ports, the company reported on Linkedin.
According to the report, the company sent the vessel Bereket M (Panama flag) with a cargo of 21.5 thousand tons of Ukrainian corn from Pivdennyi port to Turkey.
“Bereket M became the first vessel this year that Qortia AG loaded exclusively by its own resources in a deep-water Ukrainian port. Since the company’s establishment, we have been actively shipping to Ukraine from deep water for six years. However, after the Russian invasion, we focused mainly on the development of river transportation and transshipment in the ports of the Danube cluster, where the company’s share reached 15%,” the statement said.
Qortia AG is a Swiss agri-trading and logistics company headquartered in Switzerland. It specializes in the purchase and export of grains (wheat, corn, soybeans, barley, etc.), oilseeds, and processed products. The Ukrainian representative office is located in Odesa. Its owners are Konstantin Kuflyk, Dmitry Yandovsky, and Andrey Vitryak.
Bereket M is a bulk carrier flying the flag of Panama. Its length (LOA) is 154.38 meters and its beam is 26 meters.
The Filatov Institute of Eye Diseases and Tissue Therapy of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine will continue to develop technologies for using artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose eye diseases, said Andriy Korol, head of the department for studying the biological action and application of lasers in ophthalmology at the clinic.
“We have now worked out diabetic retinopathy, and at the next stage we will develop in several directions. These may include specific eye diseases, retinal diseases, glaucoma, age-related degeneration, and other diseases that are manifestations of diabetes,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Korol noted that another area of AI technology development that the institute plans to implement will be a system that will allow “to see the symptoms and signs of various diseases, such as hypertension, vascular changes, hereditary diseases, and a number of rare diseases.”
Korol specified that the institute will be able to “launch research on new nosologies every year and a half.”
PrJSC Odesa Cognac Factory, one of the largest cognac producers in Ukraine, reduced its loss to UAH 6.658 million in 2023 compared to a net loss of UAH 44.434 million in 2022.
According to the company’s report in the information disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC), its assets decreased by 2.7% to UAH 989.587 million over the year, while total receivables decreased by 7.9% to UAH 575.267 million.
At the same time, the company increased its revenue by 22.8% year-on-year to UAH 1.166 billion. At the same time, the staff of Odesa Cognac Factory PJSC decreased by 45 people over the year to 300 employees.
According to the report, at the annual shareholders’ meeting on April 29, it is planned to terminate the powers of the supervisory board and make a number of changes to the company’s charter, and then delegate the powers of the current chairman of the supervisory board to sign contractual relations with the newly elected members of the board.
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs, Odesa Cognac Factory PrJSC is owned by Ukrainian businessman and owner of the Global Spirits alcohol holding Yevhen Cherniak.
Global Spirits is a large international alcohol holding company that unites Khortytsia Distillery (Zaporizhzhia), Odesa Cognac Factory (Odesa) and Ukrainian Distribution Company. The central office is located in New York (USA).
The holding owns more than 15 local, regional and international brands: “Khortytsia, Pervak, Shustov, Morosha, Oreanda, San Marino, Mikado, Medovukha, etc.
Global Spirits products are exported to more than 87 countries.
On February 24, 2022, Global Spirits revoked its license to manufacture and distribute its products in the Russian market due to Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.
The Odesa Regional Military Administration, together with Ukrainian and Moldovan border guards, customs officers and representatives of the EUBAM mission, continues preparations for the launch of the first Odesa-Chisinau air shuttle, said Oleh Kiper, head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration.
“This should speed up the passage of Ukrainians traveling to Chisinau International Airport and relieve the border crossing points (primarily in the area of the Mayaky-Palanka-Udobne checkpoint). Organized transportation of passengers will also reduce the load on the region’s roads by cars and improve the level of service for the population in the field of international transportation,” Kiper wrote in his telegram channel.
He noted that the transfer will be carried out in several stages: passenger registration in the electronic system with a copy of the plane ticket departing from Chisinau, the formation of passenger groups 2-3 days before the departure of flights, after which buses with pre-registered passengers will depart from Odesa. Passengers of the air transfer will undergo customs and border procedures in an expedited mode.
The total planned travel time is 4 hours.
“We will do everything to launch the first buses in the near future,” added Kiper.
Yulia Svyrydenko, First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine, and Peter Kmec, Vice Prime Minister for Recovery, Resilience and Use of European Funds of Slovakia, discussed the possibility of oil supplies through the Odesa-Brody pipeline.
“We discussed the situation at border crossings, bilateral trade, industrial cooperation, and energy. We are inspired by the implemented project to supply oil through Ukraine to Slovakia through the port terminal and pipeline from Odesa,” Svyrydenko wrote on Twitter (X).
According to her, Ukraine is also interested in providing Slovakia with natural gas storage services in its underground storage facilities (UGS).
As part of the Ukrainian delegation’s visit, Ukrtransnafta CEO Volodymyr Tsependa met with a representative of the operator of the Slovak section of the Druzhba pipeline, Transpetrol’s Chairman of the Board of Directors Martin Ruzhynsky.
According to the Ukrainian operator, the parties summarized the results of cooperation in 2023 and discussed plans for organizing transportation work for the next year.
“The results of the year demonstrate well-coordinated cooperation with our European partners. We want to maintain this result in the future, so we discussed all issues related to oil transportation in 2024, in particular, the modes of pumping through the Druzhba pipeline,” Cependa said in a statement.
The Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development is designing a new road parallel to the existing Odesa-Reni highway, part of which runs through the territory of the Republic of Moldova (Palanca village), Deputy Minister of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development Yuriy Vaskov said.
“We are designing a road in parallel with the existing Odesa-Reni highway to organize a connection on Ukrainian territory,” Vaskov said at Infrastructure Day 2023, organized by the European Business Association in Kyiv on Friday.
According to him, the construction of a facility is planned directly on the Odesa-Reni highway.
“In order to solve the problem point by point, we, as the Ministry of Reconstruction, have found funding and want to build a structure to avoid stopping vehicles,” Vaskov said, adding that the issue is being coordinated with the Moldovan side, in particular, with territorial communities in Moldova.
The Deputy Minister noted that there are attempts to illegally cross the border, both successful and unsuccessful.
As you know, a part of the Odesa-Reni highway on the section from Mayaky village to Udobne village (from 51 to 50 km) runs through Moldovan territory.
On June 30, 2011, an act was signed in Chisinau (Moldova) to define and fix the boundaries of the Odesa-Reni highway section near Palanca village and the land plot. Palanca village, as well as the land plot on which it runs. The road section was de jure transferred to the ownership of Ukraine on November 18, 2001, but the act of determining the boundaries on the ground was never determined.
According to the 1999 border agreement, Moldova transferred a 7.7 km section of the Odesa-Reni highway to Ukraine for use, but the territory adjacent to the road near Palanca remained in Moldovan ownership. After the change of power in Moldova in 2009, Ukraine demanded that the territory of almost 1,000 hectares be transferred to its ownership, arguing that Moldova had transferred 450 meters of the Danube coastline to Ukraine in 2002, which enabled it to build the Giurgiulesti seaport.
