Ukrainian GlobalLogic, an IT company of the Hitachi group, has announced the acquisition of Fortech, a leading Romanian software development company.
Fortech is headquartered in Cluj-Napoca and is one of the largest digital engineering companies in Romania, GlobalLogic said on Wednesday.
The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Under the agreement, Fortech will continue to operate with its existing leadership and staff as a wholly owned subsidiary of GlobalLogic. The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approval and is expected to close by the end of Calendar Q4, 2022. The transaction will strengthen GlobalLogic’s presence in Europe by opening up access to Romania’s strong talent pool and Blue-Chip’s customer base.
In addition, GlobalLogic has opened an office in Bucharest and is inviting engineers to join the company in Romania.
“Fortech is a leading firm with proven track record and specialization in technology that is needed for digital evolution. This acquisition will further enhance GlobalLogic’s presence in Europe and accelerate our access to the rich technical talent in Romania; it will arm Fortech with the resources and strong backing of GlobalLogic and Hitachi,” Nitesh Banga, President and CEO of GlobalLogic, said.
Fortech was founded in 2003, and it cooperates with more than 1,100 specialists. With offices in four cities in Romania, it provides a full range of digital engineering services including architecture design, software development, DevOps, QA and data analytics. It specializes in Cloud, IOT and SaaS.
The press release states that GlobalLogic’s investment in Fortech is part of the company’s multi-year strategy to increase its value in the European market and help better serve customers around the world.
More than EUR66 million will be allocated under the first Interreg NEXT European cross-border cooperation program for Hungary, Slovakia and Romania’s partnership with Ukraine in health, environment and good governance, the European Commission (EC) announced Friday. “This program is part of the EU’s overall support and unwavering solidarity toward Ukraine. By implementing a cohesion policy, Interreg will help Ukraine and its bordering member states to face common challenges and seize joint opportunities,” said Elisa Ferreira, EC member for cohesion policy and reforms.
The program covers the period of 2021-2027. Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Ukraine are expected to work together to ensure equal access to health services and improve the sustainability of their health systems.
The program will support climate change adaptation and disaster risk prevention solutions. The participating countries will cooperate to protect nature, develop “green infrastructure” and tourism.
It is also a question of aligning Ukraine’s norms with EU member states in the area of effective public administration. Relevant projects will promote legal and administrative cooperation to remove common barriers to interaction in border areas, while supporting cooperation between citizens, civil societies and state institutions, according to a communiqué from the European Commission.
CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION, HUNGARY, ROMANIA, SLOVAKIA, UKRAINE
Ukraine, Moldova and Romania have agreed to sign an agreement to increase cross-border capacity to increase electricity trade, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
“We reached several important agreements today to develop our relations in the energy sector, and our teams will continue to work on their implementation. In particular, we agreed to sign a trilateral intergovernmental agreement on increasing cross-border capacity to increase the volume of electricity trade,” Kuleba said at the meeting. press conference in Odessa on Thursday.
Kuleba drew attention to the fact that the meeting in the format of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Ministers of Energy of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania is taking place for the first time.
“Three of our countries, and immediately foreign ministers and energy ministers. There is a very clear reason and goal for this – we want to build qualitatively new relations in the energy sector between our three countries, and this will be important not only for energy, but also for security and prosperity in our region,” the minister stressed.
Currently, Ukraine exports electricity to Moldova in the amount of about 165 MWh, with a possible maximum of 600 MWh, and to Romania – 150 MWh.
Moldovan state company Energocom will buy 10 million cubic meters of natural gas for $16.6 million from Moldovagaz, which gets gas from Russia’s Gazprom, Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure and Regional Development Minister Andrei Spinu said on his Telegram channel, citing a decision made by the country’s National Commission for Emergency Situations.
“This transaction will also enable Moldovagaz to pay the advance for August by September 1,” Spinu said.
It was reported earlier that the the National Commission for Emergency Situations, which is chaired by Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita, had ordered state company Energocom to buy 10 mcm of natural gas for storage in Romania.
The gas will be purchased and delivered under a framework EFET (European Federation of Energy Traders) type purchase-sale contract between Energocom and Moldovagaz, the government’s press service told Interfax.
For the first tranche of 5 mcm, the purchase price will be about $1,459 per 1,000 cubic meters. The second tranche of the gas purchase will be made in September at a price of $1,881 per 1,000 cubic meters.
The gas will be stored in neighboring Romania, as Moldova does not have its own gas storage facilities.
Moldovagaz was unable to pay an advance to Gazprom for supplies in August and the Russian company agreed to defer the payment to September 1. Moldovagaz said that current gas rates in the country do not cover its purchase price.
The commission also decided to allocate MDL 322 million from the state budget to increase Energocom’s charter capital.
Proceeds from sales of NPC Ukrenergo’s available interstate transmission capacity for electricity exports to Romania and Slovakia amounted to UAH 200.3 million since the opening on June 30.
These data are based on the results of the latest auctions in the Romanian and Slovak directions, held on July 10 with delivery on July 12. According to them, the section price to Slovakia was UAH 10.3 million and to Romania – UAH 10.2 million.
Traditionally, the most active participants in these auctions are DTEK Zakhidenergo, ERU Trading, and Le-Trading Ukraine.
At the same time, Energoatom began to participate in auctions for the export of electricity to Slovakia from the moment they started on July 5 for supplies on July 7 (two days before delivery). For the first time, the company bought almost 500 MWh of the possible 1200 MWh for export at the auction on July 9 with delivery on July 11. The plans for July 12 are to export 131 MWh.
At the same time, Ukrhydroenergo, which for the first time bought out a section to Slovakia for export of 148 MWh on July 9, and then for export of 110 MWh on July 10, ended the last two auctions with delivery on July 11 and 12 to no avail.
Auctions with delivery on July 10 became an anti-record at the cross-section price: for Slovakia, it fell on this day to UAH 11/MWh with delivery at 12-16:00, and the highest was UAH 2,390 /MWh at 23:00. For Romania, the lowest price was UAH 100/MWh at 13-14:00, the highest was a little over UAH 2,200/MWh with delivery at 21:00-23:00. For comparison: according to the results of all auctions, the price for Romania was the lowest on July 3 – UAH 1,380/MWh.
It is noteworthy that Ukrhydroenergo reserved most of its daily resource at the lowest prices in both directions.
In general, in both directions, the price of a section on July 10 amounted to a little more than UAH 2 million.
As of July 11, this figure was already ten times more – UAH 20.5 million.
The section from Slovakia and Romania for July 10-12, as before, was not reserved.
The section to Poland continues to be purchased at daily auctions in addition to the 147 MW capacity purchased at the monthly auction by DTEK Zakhidenergo – at 65 MW every hour (1,560 MWh per day) on July 10-12.
The daily cross-section to Moldova on July 10-12, according to the traditional scenario, was divided by Energoatom, which bought out a cross-section for export of 9,400 MWh per day, and Ukrhydroenergo – 2,400 MWh per day.
The section price at all auctions, except for exports to Romania, is UAH 0/MWh.
Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Chuque said that after the commissioning of the Greece-Bulgaria interconnector on Thursday, his country will be able to supply natural gas to Moldova and Ukraine, European Pravda reports with reference to the Romanian news portal Digi24.
“Essentially, this interconnector will connect the network passing through Anatolia and the Adriatic, as well as connect to the BRUA pipeline, thus ensuring gas supplies to Bulgaria and Romania,” Chuquet said at a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
“And, of course, we can provide gas supplies to our eastern partners – Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova and other countries according to the distribution scheme of this gas network,” the Romanian prime minister added.
COMMISSIONING, GAS, GREECE-BULGARIA, INTERCONNECTOR, MOLDOVA, ROMANIA, UKRAINE
