The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine intends in the next five years to increase the share of low cost air routes from Ukraine from 38% to 63%.
Such plans are contained in the government’s program (draft resolution No. 2186), posted on the parliament’s website.
According to the text of the program, for the specified period, the government intends to create conditions for a 60% increase in passenger traffic from Ukrainian airports from 20 million to 32 million people a year, as well as for increasing freight traffic from airports by 20%, from 94,000 tonnes to 112,000 tonnes per year.
In addition, the Cabinet also plans to stimulate the formation of an approximate average ticket price to the level of the average European indicator and increase the air mobility of the population by 10%, from 5% to 15%.
As reported, in January-August 2019 Ukrainian airlines transported about 9.226 million passengers, which is 10.7% more compared to the same period in 2018.
VR Capital Group (the United States), an alternative asset manager specializing in global emerging markets, has acquired the remaining stake in alternative energy projects jointly developed with ICU independent asset management, ICU reported on its website.
According to the report, deal covers green energy facilities in Kamyanets-Podilska solar plant (64 MW) in Khmelnytsky region, Solar Capital energy company (35 MW) in Kherson region and a number of small stations in Mykolaiv region (with a total capacity of 127 MW).
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The ICU only said the transaction has been approved by the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine on July 4, 2019.
“I am still confident that these assets are in good hands and that the key alternative energy sector in Ukraine is positioned to attract further large foreign investments. We see a great potential in our economy and we continue our work with international investors,” said ICU managing partner Makar Paseniuk.
He said that VR Capital has been a visionary among western investors in understanding the enormous potential of Ukraine and being ready to support the country even during difficult times.
VR Capital Group Ltd., through its principal subsidiaries including VR Advisory Services Ltd (together, VR Capital Group) is an alternative asset manager with assets under management in excess of $4.5 billion. VR Capital Group’s external client base is primarily composed of institutional investors from the United States and Western Europe, including university endowments, charitable foundations, family offices and institutional asset allocators.
Founded in 2006, ICU is Ukraine’s leading asset manager with over $500 million in assets under management. Managing Partners Makar Paseniuk and Konstantin Stetsenko are majority shareholders of ICU.
ALTERNATIVE, DEVELOPED, ENERGY PROJECTS, ICU'S, SHARE, US VR CAPITAL
The share of companies planning to attract loans in the next 12 months has reached 41.5% in the second quarter of 2019 compared to 38.2% a quarter earlier, according to the results of a regular survey of enterprises’ business expectations announced by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). The largest share of such companies accounted for the manufacturing industry, those of energy and water supply, the document says.
According to the survey, enterprises, as before, prefer loans in the national currency: their share increased to 79.1% in the second quarter compared to 78.1% in the first quarter.
The National Bank noted that large enterprises, as well as those companies that conduct export-import operations are more inclined to attract loans in foreign currency.
At the same time, the share of respondents planning to attract foreign loans rose in the market up to 10.4% in the second quarter compared to 9.7% in the previous quarter.
The share of public procurement of medicines in January-March 2019 totaled 20% of the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market, SMD consulting company (Kyiv) has said after studying the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market.
According to the company, in January-March 2019, budget medical procurement in monetary terms increased 40% compared to the same period of 2018 in the centralized procurement segment and by 19% in the procurement segment of medical institutions.
In addition, budget procurement in kind increased 134% in the segment of centralized procurement and by 13% in procurement by hospitals.
At the same time, the company said that in the first quarter of 2019, hospitals, in accordance with their needs, used the ending stocks of the 2018 budget funds to purchase drugs and expensive medicines.
In general, in the first quarter of 2019, the pharmaceutical market of Ukraine grew by 11% in monetary terms compared to the same period of 2018, to UAH 13 billion, while in kind it fell by 7%, to 177 million packages.
At the same time, according to the analysts of the company, the prescription segment in the first quarter of 2019 grew by 17% in monetary terms and decreased 1% in physical terms.
In addition, in the first quarter of 2019, sales of foreign manufacturers in kind decreased 5%, while sales of Ukrainian pharmaceutical manufacturers decreased 8%.
The share of coal of the structure of Ukraine’s energy balance to decline by 60% in 15 years, to 13%, and it will be replaced thanks to renewable energy, according to a forecast of the Razumkov Centre published by the center’s press service. According to the forecast, the share of green energy of the balance will grow fivefold in 15 years, to 25%. “Although the value of coal will gradually decrease – it will be replaced mainly by renewable energy, the coal industry will play a prominent role in the Ukrainian energy sector until 2035. First of all, for thermal generation, which performs an important function of maneuvering capacities,” the press service said, citing Director of Energy Programs Volodymyr Omelchenko.
According to forecasts, the share of gas and nuclear energy of primary energy consumption is expected to remain at the current level – 30% and 25%, respectively.
In addition, in the structure of the Ukrainian energy balance, the share of oil products may significantly decrease, to 7%.
The share of payment systems created by banking and non-bank resident institutions in Ukraine in the amount of money transfers to the country in the first half of 2018 was 15.6% compared to 4.8% in 2017, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has said. According to data on its website, if over the past year $113.7 million was transferred to the country through Ukrainian payment systems, then for the six months of this year some $189 million.
The statistics of the National Bank contains no data on the turnover of specific Ukrainian systems in this market, it gives only their share in the market of transfers within Ukraine, the total volume of which amounted to UAH 69.34 billion (almost $2.6 billion compared with $4.45 billion for the entire year of 2017).
Here the leader was the TYME payment system, whose registration the National Bank canceled on June 22 this year, with 42.78%, followed by Postal Transfer from Ukrposhta with 27.98%. They are followed by Financial World (Finansovy Svit) with 7.2%, City24 with 6.73%, InterPayService with 5.34%, Flashplay with 4.43%, while each of the following 22 systems has a share less than 1%. The National Bank specifies that according to the number of participants the leaders in the first half of the year were Post Finance LLC with 44.34% and Ukrposhta with 27.97%.
Regarding the systems created by non-residents, the leader among them remains Western Union, which increased the gap from MoneyGram: if in 2017 their share in transfers to Ukraine among non-residents was 54.5% and 23.8% respectively, then in the first half of 2018 some 56% and 23% respectively. The share of IntelExpress ranking third fell from 12.7% to 9%.
