The opportunities for cooperation in agriculture, construction and energy sectors have been discussed by Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman with Chinese Ambassador to Ukraine Du Wei. “Ukraine and China plan to double mutual goods flow to $10 billion and are mulling new opportunities or cooperation in agriculture, construction, first of all infrastructure facilities, energy and other areas,” the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers reported after a meeting of the prime minister with the ambassador.
Groysman said that the potential of relations between Ukraine and China is deepening every year, and more and more spheres of mutual interest appear.
At the meeting the Ukrainian prime minster thanked the Chinese diplomat for the successful completion of a project providing ambulances for Ukraine. He expressed hope that China International Import Expo 2018 will be successful. A Ukrainian delegation will take part in the exhibition.
The government of Ukraine will offer Moldova to build a bridge across the Dniester in Vinnytsia region, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Kistion wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.
“From the economic point of view, the project is advantageous not only to Ukraine and Moldova, but also to the entire European Union. Therefore the Ukrainian government is going to come up with a proposal to the Moldovan side to sign an intergovernmental agreement soon and start building the bridge,” he said.
According to Kistion, the shortest way between Kyiv and Chisinau today is the road through the city of Yampil in Vinnytsia region, which also includes a ferry service between two European countries with a length of 100 km, which has become obsolete and obsolescent long time ago.
The construction of this bridge is stipulated in the Transport Strategy of Ukraine until 2030, he added.
Ukraine ranks fifth in the world in terms of honey production and is the leader in its production in Europe, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze’s office has said.
“Our country produces more than 100,000 tonnes per year, that is 6% of the world’s honey [output]. Today there are about 400,000 beekeepers with 4 million beehives in Ukraine,” it said on Facebook.
The office notes that the main producers of honey are eight regions: Vinnytsia, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv, Poltava, and Kirovohrad, which account for 70% of Ukrainian honey supplied to 35 countries.
“Most of the produce is exported by Ukraine to the United States, Germany, Poland, and France. In 2017, over 50,000 tonnes of honey was delivered to the EU countries alone (this includes over 5,000 tonnes within a duty-free quota),” the report said.
Acting Head of the State Employment Service of Ukraine Valeriy Yaroshenko has said that the amount of employed population in Ukraine grew by 0.9% year-over-year.
“We are witnessing that the labor market is actually demonstrating some kind of stabilization for the first half of 2018. The growth in the employment of the population for us, according to the state statistics, occurred for the first time since 2013,” he told a news conference in. According to Yaroshenko, in comparison with the corresponding period of the previous year the number of employed population in Ukraine increased by 149,000 people (by 0.9%), and the unemployment rate is 9.7%.
At the same time, he said that 21.8% of Ukrainians work in the shadows, while last year there were 22.3% of them.
“We have 304,000 people registered with the State Employment Service today,” Yaroshenko said.
According to him, 47% of them have higher education, and in the cities of Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy and Lviv in employment centers from 85% to 90% of the unemployed people have higher education.
“As of July 27, compared with the same date in 2017, the number of unemployment assistance recipients in the country is 23,000, which is 8% less than it was in 2017,” he said.
In addition, he said that the average amount of assistance payments is growing in the country. Thus, minimum assistance under the law is UAH 544 per month, and 25% of the unemployed receive it, and the maximum is UAH 7,048, and 5% unemployed (last year 3%) receive it.
“The number of vacancies has significantly increased over the past year, we now have about 130,000 vacancies in the database,” the head of the State Employment Service said.
At the same time, he pointed out the existence of a large imbalance in the labor market between the vacancies offered and the demand of applicants.
Yaroshenko said that at the moment the employment market in Ukraine most in need of locksmiths, electric welders, turners, bakers, drivers, salesmen, cooks, waiters, nurses, tractor drivers and agricultural machinery servicemen.
“We for half a year were able to retrain and raise the qualification of 88,000 unemployed,” Yaroshenko said.
Ukraine and Israel seek to boost goods flow in the coming five years to $2 billion a year, while last year the figure grew by 14.7% compared with 2016, reaching $772.5 million, Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv has said. “I met with Israeli Minister of the Economy and Industry Eli Cohen and agreed to increase the trade flow to $ 2 billion in the next five years,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
According to him, the countries also intend to develop cooperation in the field of innovation and high technologies.
Kubiv also recalled that Ukraine and Israel intend to sign a free trade agreement by the end of this year.
Ukraine in June 2018 increased steel production by 1.5% compared to the same period in 2017, to 1.711 million tonnes, climbing from 12th to 14th in the rating of 64 countries, the world’s major producers of this product, compiled by the World Steel Association (Worldsteel). In June the growth of steel smelting was recorded in the majority of the first ten countries from June 2017, except for Brazil.
The top ten countries producing steel in June are as follows: China (80.196 million tonnes, a rise of 7.5%), Japan (8.76 million tonnes, an increase of 4.2%), India (8.739 million tonnes, an increase of 7.4%), the United States (6.847 million tonnes, a rise of 0.8%), South Korea (6.122 million tonnes, an increase of 3.2%), Russia (6.12 million tonnes, a rise of 8.9%), Germany (3.77 million tonnes, an increase of 2.6%), Turkey (3.043 million tonnes, an increase of 0.7%), Brazil (2.59 million tonnes, a fall of 2.2%), and Italy (2.135 million tonnes, a rise of 1.5%).
They are followed by Iran (2.08 million tonnes, an increase of 16.5% and, Ukraine (1.711 million tonnes, a rise of 1.5%). Overall, 64 countries produced 151.379 million tonnes of steel in June 2018, which is 5.8% more than in June 2017.
In January-June 2018, 64 countries produced 881.455 million tonnes of steel, which is 4.6% more than in January-June 2017.
