The Government of Ukraine and the Swiss Federal Council have signed a protocol amending the bilateral convention on the avoidance of double taxation.
“The signing of this protocol creates favorable conditions for investors in Ukraine and Switzerland, stimulates business initiative of entrepreneurs, regulates issues of international taxation of income between states and eliminates tax discrimination,” President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, who attended the signing ceremony in Davos, wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday.
Poroshenko met with Swiss President Ueli Maurer and agreed to continue interaction between the competent authorities in the matter of returning assets illegally withdrawn from Ukraine by former officials, Ukraine’s presidential press-service reported.
During the meeting, Poroshenko invited his Swiss counterpart to visit Ukraine.
Ukrainian Finance Minister Oksana Markarova and Maurer signed the protocol.
According to a posting on the website of the Finance Ministry of Ukraine, the signing of the protocol is aimed at avoiding double taxation of individual and companies’ income earned on the territories of the two countries.
“This will be achieved both by dividing the right to tax certain types of income between countries depending on their place of origin, and by taking into account the amounts of taxes paid in one country in tax liabilities of a taxpayer in one country,” the Finance Ministry said.
According to the ministry, the signed protocol provides for an increase in the tax rates of interest and royalties from nil to 5%, improving the procedure for resolving tax disputes through arbitration, and expanding the parties’ ability to exchange tax information without mentioning the requirements of national tax interest or bank secrecy.
In addition, the document establishes rules of applying the right to receive benefits – they will not be provided regarding the type of income or property, if one of the main goals of any agreement or an agreement between economic entities was to directly or indirectly receive such a benefit.
“These rates and regulations suit the general practice of concluding such international treaties on the avoidance of double taxation and protocols thereto with other countries by Ukraine,” the Finance Ministry said.
After signing the protocol, the countries are to implement the internal procedures required for the ratification of the agreement, the ministry said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko held a meeting with newly elected President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro in Davos (Switzerland), where the World Economic Forum is taking place. During the meeting the two presidents pointed out the importance of resuming large-scale cooperation in all sectors of mutual interest.
“The parties discussed prospects of intensification of trade and economic cooperation, first of all in the military-technical, investment, energy, scientific-technical and other spheres. It was also agreed to hold a regular meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation in the near future,” the press service of the Ukrainian head of state reported on Thursday.
The parties confirmed interest in restarting a number of industrial, energy, infrastructure and other projects suspended by the previous administration of Brazil.
“The parties stand for the need to increase the level of coordination between the two countries in the framework of international organizations, first of all the United Nations. The President of Brazil supported the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” the press service said.
Poroshenko invited Bolsonaro to visit Ukraine.
First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv and Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Francis Gurry have reached an agreement on a joint project to develop the National Strategy for Intellectual Property in Ukraine. “I just met with Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization Francis Gurry. It is nice that his organization has highly and positively appreciated our work in reforming our intellectual property domain. We agreed on a joint project to develop the National Intellectual Property Strategy and continue to form an extensive network of innovation support centers in Ukraine,” Kubiv wrote on his Facebook page.
Also, he said, together with WIPO, Ukraine will continue to introduce alternative procedures for resolving disputes in the field of intellectual property.
DEVELOPING, HELP, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, NATIONAL STRATEGY, UKRAINE
Trade turnover between Ukraine and India in January-October 2018 amounted to $2.3 billion, of which $1.5 billion was the cost of sunflower oil, First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv has said. “India ranks first in terms of exports of Ukrainian goods to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region and is the fifth largest buyer of Ukrainian products among countries in the world,” he wrote on Facebook.
The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade said on Twitter the Ukrainian delegation headed by Kubiv on January 11-13 is on a working visit to India to participate in the 25th international summit “New India: Rising to Global Occasions.”
Yaroslav company (Kyiv), specializing in production of textiles and bedding, has opened Krolevets sewing factory (Sumy region), which specializes in sewing women’s shirts, pajamas, and workwear.
According to a report by Krolevets City Council on its Facebook page, the factory already employs about 100 people, but in 2019, with the opening of another shop, it is planned to increase the number of employees to 300 people.
At present, in particular, the factory is fulfilling an order for sewing jackets for the workers of Nova Poshta.
“It’s nice that in such a difficult time, despite the legal regime of martial law in the territory of Sumy region, new enterprises are opened,” Head of Sumy Regional State Administration Mykola Klochko, who was present at the opening of the factory, said.
The director and owner of Yaroslav company, Oleksandr Barsuk, previously reported that the company annually invests about $1 million of credit funds in equipment and modernization of production facilities.
The main specialization of the company is production of bed linen, blankets, mattresses, goods for children, kitchen textiles.
In 2017, the revenue of Yaroslav was UAH 354 million (in the first quarter of 2018 almost UAH 91 million).
The Infrastructure Ministry of Ukraine jointly with the Infrastructure Ministry of Poland are working on restoration of two train services in 2019, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said at a press conference in Kyiv.
“Together with our Polish colleagues, we are working on the restoration of railway services on the Przemyśl-Malhowice-Nyzhankovychi (Lviv region) line, as well as for Lublin-Lviv. I am sure that these lines have the future,” he said.
Omelyan said that the initiative to resume the railway services between Ukraine and Poland came from Infrastructure Minister of Poland Andrzej Adamczyk.
“We agreed that in December Ukrzaliznytsia and the Polish railway will finally agree on the launch format of these lines, and closer to the New Year we will be able to announce the terms for their implementation,” the Ukrainian minister said.
Omelyan also reported that today the decision was made to launch a container train between China and Europe, namely between China and Poland, on the territory of Ukraine.
“We plan that the number of such trains will be about 1,000 a year,” he said.
