Ribas Hotels Group LLC (Odesa), the managing company of the national network of three- and four-star tourist hotel and restaurant complexes, has signed an agreement to manage the Bautzen hotel in Jelenia Gora (Poland). “The management company of Ribas Hotels Group has developed a concept and corporate style for the hospitality facility in the Polish city of Jelenia Gora and signed a management agreement. The opening is scheduled for spring 2021,” the company told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to Ribas Hotels Group, after the launch, the three-star hotel will include 23 rooms. The object will be the first one in the operator’s portfolio outside Ukraine.
The company noted that in order to increase the profitability of the facility, it was decided to reduce staff costs by creating a contactless reception desk, introducing the position of a curator of the facility, which helps conduct check-in if necessary.
“Most guests check in on their own, through the terminal, a lock system that will be installed on the doors. A specialist from the hotel will be 24/7 online chatting and communicating with guests, as well as advising guests who did not use to this service format,” the company said.
In addition, Ribas Hotels Group decided to abandon the traditional list of additional services that are not in demand. In particular, in Bautzen there will be no minibars, they will be replaced by vending machines with snacks and various prepared meals in the common areas of the hotel.
According to estimates by Ribas Hotels Group, the planned estimated return on investment in the opening of Bautzen is 5-7% per annum.
A consortium of Vekto Sp. z o.o. (Poland) and Iridex Group Plastic s.r.l. (Romania) has been recognized the winner of an international tender to implement a project funded by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the government of Sweden for integrated reclamation of a landfill site in the village of Velyki Hrybovychi outside Lviv, Director of Lviv municipal enterprise Zelene Misto (“Green City”) Vadym Nozdrya said in Kyiv. Speaking at a presentation of a campaign to support the project, he specified that this decision had already been agreed with international lenders and the contract with the winner is expected to be signed by the end of this year, which will allow the contractor to begin work as early as at the beginning of 2020.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy emphasized that the city is extremely interested in the speedy implementation of the project, as today it is forced to spend UAH 300 million annually on garbage collection over the closure of the Hrybovychi landfill.
According to Nozdrya, work on technical rehabilitation in Hrybovychi has been ongoing since July 2019 and should be completed in 2021. During this time, the contractor must perform work on leveling and terracing the entire surface of the landfill, cover it with a technological protective screen and carry out the construction of utility systems.
Active preparations at the landfill are under way: the removal of contaminated soil from the landslide that occurred in 2016, along with the removal of lakes with filtrate water, he said. Hrybovychi landfill rehabilitation costs are estimated at EUR11.8 million, plus EUR1.8 million for work with filtrates. Zelene Misto is the commissioner of the work.
JSC Ukrposhta launches the delivery of parcels within three to six days from the date of shipment from a warehouse in Poland to Ukraine, the press service of the company has said.
According to a press release, Ukrposhta together with the private postal operator SMART Forwarding (with the head office in Greece) and the Polish company InPost have already begun test deliveries of international mail from Poland.
“We and our partners provide perhaps the only economical official channel for delivering goods or things. It’s convenient, reliable, simple. For example, sending a package with sneakers, clothes and food in factory packaging weighing 10 kg and with the size of up to 19x38x64 cm through an InPost post terminal will cost about PLN 37, or about UAH 230 in equivalent,” the press service of Ukrposhta said, citing first deputy director general of the company Oleksandr Pertsovsky.
According to him, if the value of a parcel per recipient does not exceed the customs limit of EUR100, customs clearance will be carried out according to a simplified mechanism.
“Now we are working in a test mode, doing weekly deliveries, arranging all processes. We plan to increase the frequency of departures from Poland to two or three per week,” the expert said.
The departure route from Poland to Ukraine can be tracked by the track number on the Ukrposhta website.
According to the company, the new delivery channel is safer and about 20-25% more profitable than alternative options.
In the near future, Ukrposhta plans to launch similar channels for the international delivery of parcels to Ukraine from Italy, Britain, and Germany.
Ukraine in January-October 2019 increased electricity exports by 1.5% (by 77.1 million kWh) compared to the same period in 2018, to 5.127 billion kWh, the Ministry of Energy and Environment Protection has told the agency. Electricity supplies from the “energy island of Burshtyn TPP” to Hungary, Slovakia and Romania increased by 10.9% (by 339.2 million kWh), to 3.442 billion kWh.
Electricity supplies to Poland decreased by 2.5% (by 29.3 million kWh), to 1.132 billion kWh.
Electricity supplies to Moldova amounted to 552.7 million kWh, which is 29.6% less (232.8 million kWh) than in January-October 2018.
Ukrainian electricity was not exported to Belarus and Russia for January-October 2018 and 2019.
At the same time, Ukraine in July 2019 resumed commercial import of electricity, the total volume of which since the beginning of this year amounted to 1.538 million kWh. In particular, 573.9 million kWh were supplied from Slovakia, 644.9 million kWh from Belarus, and 191.5 million kWh from Hungary.
In addition, within technologically exchanged energy flows linked to synchronous operation of Ukrainian power grid with the power systems of neighbor countries 29.8 million kWh of electricity was imported from Russia and 0.8 million from Belarus.
The Board of Directors of the Cereal Planet Group, a leading producer of cereals in Ukraine, has approved the decision to change the place of registration from Cyprus to Poland, the company has reported on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) on Friday.
According to the report, shareholders at an extraordinary meeting on August 12 made this decision. Now Cereal Planet is going through the registration process in the relevant authorities of Poland. The plans are to register a holding company of the group called Cereal Planet S.A. in Warsaw.
Cereal Planet produces weight grains for B2B under the OLIMP trademark – four product lines: Bulgur, Ridlan, Mayfayna, Zlatokositsa, and under the Lyuba Ferma trademark – animal feed mixtures. It exports cereals to more than 30 countries.
Cereal Planet, according to the company, occupies up to 10% of the Ukrainian cereal market. The monthly production volume is 4,500-5,000 tonnes.
The owners of the group are Anatoliy and Oleksandr Vlasenko (33.54% and 29.93% respectively), Oleksandr Slavhorodsky (29.93%), and Ihor Dobruskin (5.5%).
Exports of Ukrainian agricultural products to the EU countries grew by 34.3% in January-July 2019 year-over-year, to $4.1 billion, former acting Minister of Agricultural Policy and Food of Ukraine Olha Trofimtseva has said. “The export of Ukrainian agricultural products to the EU for the seven months of 2019 increased 34.3% (or $1.04 billion), to $4.1 billion compared to the same period in 2018,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
The main products in the export structure to the EU are cereals – $1.8 billion, vegetable oils – $921.9 million, oilseeds – $385.4 million, bagasse and other food waste – $345.5 million, poultry – $117.3 million, fruits, nuts and zest – $78.6 million.
The share of the Netherlands in the trade between Ukraine and the EU countries was 18%, Spain’s – 13.5%, Poland’s – 13.4%, Germany’s – 11.1%, and Italy’s – 10.6%.
Trofimtseva said that as of September 2, 2019, Ukraine had fully used the EU tariff import quotas for honey, sugar, barley groats and flour, processed starch, preserved tomatoes, grape and apple juices, corn and wheat. The quota was used for butter by 48%, and for processed milk products – by 33.3%.
