Swiss International, part of Lufthansa Group, is increasing the number of Zurich-Kyiv flights from four to six per week from April, Lufthansa Group Country Manager Rene Koinzack has said. “From April 7, the number of flights will be increased to six per week and from July they will be carried out daily,” he told reporters at the Embassy of Switzerland in Kyiv on April 5.
Koinzack added that the flights will be carried out by Bombardier CS300 [for 135 passengers] and CS100 [for 110 passengers] planes.
He also told Interfax-Ukraine that it was too early to talk about a possibility of launching new flights from Kyiv or Ukrainian cities to Switzerland by the airline. Koinzack recalled that the flight between Zurich and Kyiv was resumed only a year ago and the number of passengers on this flights would be increased by 50%. Thus, the company needs some time to analyze results of such changes.
As reported, Swiss International Air Lines stopped performing direct flights between Kyiv and Zurich from October 1, 2014.
“The Zurich-Kyiv route did not come up to our expectations. The situation in Ukraine also played its role,” a representative of the airline, Sonja Ptaszek, said.
The airline resumed flights on this route from March 26, 2018.
The European Commission is ready to cooperate with any candidate elected in the presidential elections in Ukraine, Katarina Mathernova, the Deputy Director-General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations at the European Commission, said in a comment to Hromadske. She said it doesn’t matter whether Zelensky [showman Volodymyr Zelensky] or Poroshenko [incumbent President Petro Poroshenko] will be elected, they will work with any of them.
Mathernova said that Zelensky was not known in the political sphere, therefore, the voice of Ukrainian civil society should be especially heard and supported.
If there is Poroshenko’s second term, we know that the second term is still a slightly different mobilization, a new factor for civil society, she added.
The State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumers’ Rights Protection and the authorized body of Saudi Arabia have approved the form of the international veterinary certificate for exports of Ukrainian beef and products made of it.
The Ukrainian authority posted the information on its website on Monday.
As reported, in January 2019, Ukraine and Singapore approved veterinary certificates for exports of poultry and products made of it, shell eggs and egg products from Ukraine.
As of March 7, 2019, Ukraine has started sowing early grain and leguminous crops in seven regions. The crops had been sowed on 58,000 ha or 3% of the target.
According to a report of the Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry of Ukraine, spring barley was sowed on 34,000 ha (2%), wheat on 1,000 ha (1%), peas on 23,000 ha (7%) and millet on 500 ha.
In addition, fertilizer input on areas with winter crops in grain was finished on 4.6 million ha (60% of the target).
Fertilizers were input on 3.8 million ha with winter wheat (59%), on 43,000 ha with winter rye (38%) and 718,000 ha with winter barley (71%).
In addition, areas with winter rapeseeds were filled with fertilizers on 1.1 million ha (83%).
The ministry said that the logistics of agricultural products remains a bottleneck of Ukrainian exports.
“Therefore, there is a proposal and a common desire of the response team members [the interdepartmental response team in agricultural logistics] to transfer its work to the systemic track. In parallel with the current and urgent issues, we will work on a long-term development strategy and logistics efficiency in agriculture, and jointly worked out decisions and proposals will be submitted to the meetings of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine,” Acting Minister of Agricultural Policy and Food Olha Trofimtseva said.
According to her, among the key issues requiring strategic discussion are three issues: the predictability of operation or closure of low-efficiency stations and the possibility of alternative solutions; fair and transparent pricing; systematic vision of the formation of routes of transportation of agricultural products in 2019.
Real wages in Ukraine in January 2019 compared with January 2018 increased by 9.5%, while compared with December 2018 it decreased by 13.6%, the State Statistics Service has reported. According to the service, the average nominal wage of full-time employees in January 2019 compared with the previous month decreased by 12.8%, in annual terms it grew by 19.6%, reaching UAH 9,223.
The authority said that in December 2018, it amounted to UAH 10,573, November – UAH 9,161, October – UAH 9,218, September – UAH 9,042, August – UAH 8,977 and July – UAH 9,170.
According to the statistics department, the largest increase in the average wage of full-time employees in January 2019 compared with January 2018 was observed in Zaporizhia (25.1%), Poltava (23.5%), Dnipropetrovsk (23.0%), Vinnytsia (22.4%), Ternopil (20.5%) and Kharkiv (20.2%) regions, while in Kyiv city this figure was 17.6%.
The highest level of wages in the past month was recorded in Kyiv city – UAH 13,721, and the lowest in Chernivtsi region – UAH 6,958.
In January 2019 compared with the same month of 2018, wages increased the most in IT and telecommunications – by 25.2%, in industry – by 24.9%, in construction – by 24.0%, in public administration and defense, compulsory social insurance – by 22.9%, administrative and support services – by 21.8%, and real estate transactions – by 20.3%.
The flow of health tourists from Ukraine to Germany grows by some 15-20% every year, and the sharp growth was seen after the introduction of visa-free regime, Director of DeutschMedic GmbH Anna Weegen (Essen, Germany) has told Interfax-Ukraine. “In 2019, it will be the 21st year, as I organize the arrival of patients from the countries of the former USSR for treatment in Germany. According to my observations and according to the press, the flow from Ukraine is increasing annually by 15-20%. A significant jump occurred after the abolition of the entry visas to the countries of the Schengen legislation of the European Union for holders of Ukrainian biometric passports, “she said.
The cheapening of air links between Ukraine and Germany contributes to the increase in the flow of medical tourists, according to the expert. Weegen said that foreign patients can receive almost all the services that modern medicine has in its arsenal in German hospitals, with the exception of only legally regulated features in transplantation and artificial insemination.
In particular, for patients from Ukraine, requests for treatment of oncology are currently the most relevant. Neurology is second, outperforming traditionally high-demand cardiac interventions (electrophysiology, stenting, valve replacement, and aortocoronary shunting), orthopedics is in fourth place, including total joint replacement.
“Practically each of the patients who receive medical services in the above-mentioned disciplines necessarily uses the services of related specialists, and at the end of the treatment – some types of rehabilitation,” the expert said, noting the growing popularity of preventive annual check-ups.
Weegen said that currently there are no legislative acts in Germany prescribing medical institutions to report to any authorities on the number of foreign patients. However, those institutions that have not some foreign patients, “but dozens and hundreds, keep their own internal statistics, which is sometimes shared with the press or economic authorities.”
“In Germany there are almost 2,000 hospitals with a total fund of about 500,000 beds, and 20 million inpatients per year. At the same time, there are hospitals where there have never been foreign patients, but in some clinics the proportion of medical tourists can approach 10% of the total number of patients,” she said.
In this case, medical tourists receive not only inpatient, but also outpatient treatment in Germany, using the services of medical practices, which in Germany are more than 75,000.
“Many foreign patients receive outpatient services in clinics where statistics is not collected by anyone. The same applies to numerous sanatoriums, rehabilitation centers, prosthetic institutes and other institutions,” she said.
According to Weegen, in the coming years, medical tourists will come to Germany, mainly to receive high-tech medical care, in particular, complex surgical or catheter interventions, robot-assisted surgeries, radiation, that is, all that domestic medicine, due to the high cost of technology, has not yet implemented everywhere.”
At the same time, according to the expert, “primary diagnosis is made in the country of residence,” and the patient receives the second opinion in Germany. Then the patient has a surgery in the country of residence. He or she comes to Germany for radiation and chemotherapy, and then continues chemotherapy at the place of residence.
“This approach saves the patient’s time and money and gives him or her access to all the achievements of medical progress without a complete separation from the domestic system,” she said.
Weegen said that the share of health care in Germany is about 11% of GDP, and the share of medical tourism in health care is less than 0.04% of GDP.
According to Weegen, according to very rough estimates, approximately 250,000 foreign patients are treated in Germany annually. At the same time, about half of all medical tourists come from the countries of the former USSR.
