Ukraine and France plan to create a joint meteocluster for agriculture, the press service of the Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities Economy Ministry has reported. “We are planning to create a joint meteocluster for agriculture and assistance to farmers. This is about bringing new technologies to the processing of meteorological data. This is necessary to obtain more accurate weather data, increase harvest and crop protection, introduce system monitoring of climate change and further modeling,” Deputy Prime Minister, Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities Economy Minister of Ukraine Hennadiy Zubko said.
According to the report, the Ukrainian-French intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation came to the relevant agreements.
According to the press service of the ministry, the representatives of the countries also agreed on attracting French companies to the development of Ukrainian farms, investments in seed production, and on strengthening cooperation in animal husbandry, in particular, in the dairy sector.
In addition, the countries plan to develop cooperation in IT and cybersecurity, and French companies will take part in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, as well as in public procurement through the ProZorro e-procurement system.
The goods turnover between Ukraine and the United States in January-August 2019 grew by 16% year-over-year, to $2.6 billion, First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv has said.
“Bilateral trade in the eight months of 2018 increased by 16% and amounted to almost $2.6 billion. Exports to the United States grew by almost 32% and imports by 11%,” Kubiv said, opening the first official U.S. trade mission in Kyiv on Monday.
He also said that over three and a half years in Ukraine 80 factories were built with the attraction of foreign investment or are under construction. The leader in investing in the construction of factories is Germany, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
“The outright leader in attracting investments is Lviv region, where 18 factories with the attraction of foreign investors have been built or their construction is ending since 2015. The second place in attracting investments in the number of projects is occupied by Vinnytsia and Ivano-Frankivsk regions – six factories each,” Kubiv said.
The U.S. trade mission in Ukraine consists of four sections – IT, agriculture, infrastructure, and energy. The United States represents three companies in each of these areas.
Ukraine, Poland have agreed on the preliminary exchange of 160,000 licenses for transportation by road in 2019, Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry has reported after a meeting of the Ukrainian-Polish mixed commission for international road haulage held on October 10 and October 11.
“The sides will hold a regular meeting of the mixed commission in the first half of 2019, where a decision will be made to establish the final quota,” the Infrastructure Ministry said on Friday.
In particular, there will be universal licenses for of the categories Euro-1, Euro-2 and Euro-5 – 10,000 each, Euro-3 – 50,000, Euro-4 – 20,000, and transit categories of Euro-3 – 25,000 and Euro-5 – 35,000.
According to the report, Ukraine also agreed to obtain from Poland an additional 10,000 licenses (8,000 transit and 2,000 universal) for this year, which will increase their number to 216,500.
The Infrastructure Ministry said that Poland again insists on reducing the 2019 quota to 130,000. However, this does not meet the needs of Ukrainian haulers. “Our position in relation to this proposal was unambiguous – we do not agree to any reduction of the quota!” Director of the Strategic Development Department of the road market and road transport of the Infrastructure Ministry Viktor Sasin said on Facebook.
The ministry said that the meeting on the quota increase for 2019 will be held after evaluating the effectiveness of the use of already issued licenses.
