The price of gold is rising in trading on Thursday amid fears of escalation of Russian military aggression in Ukraine.
Quotes of futures with delivery in December on the Comex exchange are growing by 0.6% – up to $2668.3 per ounce. Over the past five sessions, the precious metal rose in price by 3.8%.
Earlier this year, gold was over $2800 an ounce, but prices pulled back after Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.
Peter Spina, founder of GoldSeek.com, said in an interview with MarketWatch that the precious metal could exceed $3,000 an ounce next year.
A number of temperature records, including the temperature of water in the Dnipro River in Kyiv, were set on July 16, according to the Facebook page of the Borys Sreznevsky Central Geophysical Observatory.
“According to the observations of the Kyiv hydrological station of the Borys Sreznevsky Central Geophysical Observatory, on July 16, the maximum water temperature in the Dnipro reached 29.0°C and exceeded the previous maximum by 0.4°, which was recorded on July 22, 2010, and amounted to 28.6°C,” the post says.
The maximum daily air temperature in Kyiv on July 16 was also the highest on record for this date and amounted to 36.0°C, exceeding the previous record of 1931 by 0.2°C.
In addition, the maximum wind speed in the capital reached a record 21 m/s, which is 1 m/s more than the previous maximum recorded in 1964.
A number of daily temperature records were also set on July 16 at meteorological stations in the Kyiv region: in the district center of Vyshgorod, the town of Baryshivka in Brovary district, and at the Teteriv meteorological station in Piskivka, Bucha district.
“A new record was set at the Teteriv meteorological station. The maximum daily air temperature was +36.9°C. The previous record was set in 1951: +35.5°C,” the report says.
In Baryshivka, the maximum daily air temperature was recorded at +34.5°C, the previous record was set at +33.6°C in 2010.
At the United Hydrometeorological Station “Vyshgorod” on the night of July 16, the warmest minimum daily air temperature was recorded at +23.5°C, which is 0.1° higher than in 2010.
Global cereal production will reach a new record in the 2023/2024 crop year thanks to strong corn harvests in the US and soybean harvests in Brazil, the International Grains Council (IGC) has forecast.
It estimates total cereal production of 2.297 billion tons in 2023/2024, compared with 2.259 billion tons in 2022/2023 and 2.295 billion tons in 2021-2022.
Wheat will produce 784 million tons, corn 1.22 billion tons, rice 527 million tons and soybeans 400 million tons, according to the IGC forecast.
“Cereal consumption could increase by 2 percent and also reach a record high, given rising demand for cereals in food, feed and industrial uses,” the organization said in its review.
IGC estimates that cereal consumption will reach 2.306 billion tons in the 2023/2024 crop year.
The sale of wood without electronic centralized records will be considered illegal from April 2020 and will be subject to additional checks by law enforcement authorities, Head of the State Forest Resources Agency Andriy Zablotsky has said. “95% of all wood logged by forestry enterprises in Ukraine is subject to electronically record-keeping. With dry figures, this means that 526 permanent forest users are connected to the electronic centralized records, of which 341 are state-owned enterprises, organizations and institutions, 144 are municipal enterprises and 41 are forest users who belong to other organizational and legal forms of management,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
According to Zablotsky, the remaining 5% are individual municipal and private enterprises that are in the process of training and connecting to the electronic centralized records. He reminded that previously only forestry enterprises managed by the State Forest Resources Agency worked in the electronic record-keeping system.
The head of the State Forest Resources Agency said that access to the unified public system of electronic record-keeping of wood was provided to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the National Police, the State Fiscal Service, the Security Service of Ukraine and other public bodies so that they had the opportunity to verify the legality of wood transportation. The public can verify the legality of logging through the Forest in a Smartphone system and the legality of its transportation by tag number, consignment notes and the vehicle, he said.
“Starting in April, the sale of wood without electronic records will be considered unlawful and will be subject to additional checks by law enforcement agencies,” Zablotsky said.
The State Forest Resources Agency is also preparing amendments to the legislation regarding the criminalization of trade in illegally logged wood and the inaccuracy of information entered into the electronically record-keeping system.
In addition, according to the head of the State Forest Resources Agency, it is planned to resolve the issue of full certification of wood products, so that there are no legislative gaps when individual wood products are exported from Ukraine without certificates of origin.
“Often there are questions both from trading partners and from society that such products are made from wood of dubious origin,” Zablotsky said.
The book of records of Ukraine has declared Corvalol medicine made by PJSC Farmak (Kyiv) the most famous sedative on the country’s market. Head of the supervisory board of the company Filia Zhebrovska said at the award ceremony said that Corvalol, developed in 1959 by scientists of Lomonosov Kyiv Chemical and Pharmaceutical Plant, and Farmak has been a legal successor of it since 1991, is being produced at Farmak in line with all European standards.
She said that Farmak produces Corvalol in a closed cycle from the synthesis of a substance to the production of finished dosage forms and guarantees its quality at every stage of production.
In turn, Executive Director Volodymyr Kostiuk said that with the development of pharmaceutical manufacturing technology, Farmak will also improve the production technology of Corvalol and expand the line of ready-made forms of the drug. In particular, at present the drug is marketed in the form of drops, tablets and soft capsules.
“By our example, we will show that modern pharmaceutical production exists in Ukraine. Even the old Soviet Corvalol today is not the same as it was 60 years ago. Now it is produced using modern equipment, manufactured according to all standards of Ukraine, Europe and the United States. Unfortunately, I cannot say this about our rivals, who do not care about quality but occupy the market. I hope the situation will improve in the near future,” he said.
Currently, Farmak has a number of drugs, the production of which in a closed cycle was started by the Lomonosov Kyiv Chemical and Pharmaceutical Plant, in particular, Diazolin, Corvalol, Naphthyzin and Validol.
In general, the company has more than 220 product dossiers, produces about 20 new drugs annually.
The decision to develop technology and create a cardiovascular medicine, similar to Valocordin, which was produced in Germany, at the Lomonosov Kyiv Chemical and Pharmaceutical Plant was made in 1959. The first batch of the drug was released as early as next year at the same enterprise. At that time, it was a know-how – a generic European sedative drug.
Farmak since 1991 is the only manufacturer of Corvalol on the post-Soviet territory. The Corvalol trademark is protected in 15 countries of Europe and Middle Asia, including Germany, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
Consumer sentiment in Ukraine has improved after falling at the beginning of the year: the consumer confidence index after a decrease of 3 points in the first quarter grew by 4 points in the second quarter, to 62 (on a scale of 0 to 200), according to a study by The Conference Board, prepared jointly with Nielsen. “The growing trend encourages, while consumers remain very cautious due to the unstable economic situation in the country,” Nielsen’s press release quotes Nielsen Managing Director for Ukraine and Belarus Vaios Dimoragas as saying.
He noted that the record low level of consumer confidence in Ukraine was recorded in 2015 at 41 points.
The company states the improvement of the index is due to the improvement by consumers of estimates of prospects in the labor market and their financial well-being. At the same time, the indicator of readiness to spend money is relatively stable for the fourth consecutive quarter.
The study says the absolute majority of Ukrainians continue to believe that the country is in a state of crisis, while the number of such declined to 92% in the second quarter of 2018 compared to 95% in the first quarter. The number of those consumers who believe that the country will not get out of the crisis in the next 12 months is stable.
The list of worries is headed by the war – 31% of Ukrainians are concerned about it. The growth of housing and utilities services tariffs ranks second – 29% of consumers are concerned about it. They are followed by such reasons for concern as the economy and rising prices for food and health.
