The growth of consumer prices in Ukraine in June 2022 accelerated to 3.1% from 2.7% in May, returning to the level of April, the State Statistics Service (Gosstat) reported on Friday.
In June last year, inflation was 0.2%, so in annual terms, in June this year, it rose to 21.5% from 18% in May, 16.4% in April, 13.7% in March, 10.7% – in February and 10% – in January, the agency said.
Core inflation over the past month also increased to 1.6% from 1.4% in May, which, however, is less than 3% in April and 3.8% in March. However, taking into account 0.4% in May 2021 in annual terms, it increased to 14.9% from 13.7% in May, 13% in April, 10.5% in March, 8.2% – at the end of February and 7.6% – at the end of January.
Since the beginning of this year, for its first half of the year, inflation in Ukraine amounted to 17.4%, and the base – 11.4%, said the State Statistics Service.
In the consumer market in June, prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages increased by 3.2%. Eggs increased the most (by 17.2%). Prices for sugar, rice, cereal products, pork, vegetables, poultry meat increased by 10.9-4.2%. At the same time, prices for beef and fruits fell by 1.1%.
Prices for alcoholic beverages and tobacco products increased by 2.4%, including for alcoholic beverages – by 3.4%, tobacco products – by 1.4%.
Clothes and footwear fell in price by 1.4%, in particular, clothes – by 1.8%, shoes – by 0.9%.
Transportation prices rose by 11.2%, mainly due to a rise in the price of fuel and lubricating oils by 21.3%, as well as road and rail passenger transport by 7.4% and 4.5%, respectively.
In the field of communications, prices increased by 0.9%, which is associated with a rise in the cost of postal services and telephone equipment by 3.0%.
As reported, in 2021 inflation in Ukraine rose to 10% from 5% in 2020 and 4.1% in 2019, while core inflation rose to 7.9% against 4.5% a year earlier.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky called for the export of Ukrainian goods and services to Europe, which will help mitigate the blow inflicted on the economy of the continent by Russian aggression.
“Russia launched a large-scale attack on Europe from Ukraine, because Russia understands the importance of Ukraine for the European project. Russia will inevitably lose, because Europe cannot be split, not divided into parts, as it was before,” he said, speaking on Friday on videoconferencing in the Slovenian Parliament.
“They say in Moscow that they are not enemies of Europe. But Russia has hit the Europeans with a gas crisis. They are trying to keep European gas storage facilities empty before winter. Russia has driven gas prices in Europe to historic highs, deliberately limiting supplies. This has led to catastrophic inflation “, he noted.
According to Zelensky, “Russia is preparing another strike – migration. When the Russian fleet blocked our ports, it was a conscious decision against everyone in the world who depends on food imports. And you see the consequences, but this is only the beginning.”
“Without our food, it will not be possible to stabilize the food market. If there is a famine in Africa and Asia, then you will see new migrants on the territory of the European Union. Millions of new migrants,” the president said.
Zelenskiy said that importing Ukrainian electricity would help mitigate the energy crisis in Europe. “We have a surplus of electricity, even now, when Russian marauders are taking solar power plants out of Ukrainian regions and by their actions have significantly limited our coal generation,” he said.
“We can increase exports 10 times or more, and this will allow us to replace a significant part of Russian gas imports with Ukrainian electricity. All of Ukraine’s European neighbors can get new energy stability and lower energy prices in Europe thanks to Ukrainian electricity,” Zelensky said.
He recalled Ukraine’s gas storage facilities, the most convenient for our region, which can strengthen the European gas market and make the EU more prepared for the winter seasons.
“Together with our partners in the EU, we are creating new food export routes,” Zelensky said. Enormous opportunities arise from the integration of our country into the EU digital market, the president added.
“In order to get through to you, they have to get through us. Therefore, everyone in Europe is interested in Ukraine winning,” Zelensky concluded.
Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak said that judicial reform remains one of the necessary ones for joining the EU.
“Judicial reform, a mechanism for selecting judges and holding them accountable,” he said, speaking at a Forbes-Ukraine conference on Friday.
Among the necessary reforms, he also named the reform of the SBU. “We must also continue to implement a plan to de-oligarchize Ukraine in order to eliminate the influence of the oligarchs on political decision-making,” he said. At the same time, he stressed the need for a significant strengthening of the antimonopoly legislation.
Yermak also announced the reform of key ministries and departments. “The state should become more compact and efficient,” he said.
The main principles for the authorities, according to him, remain “security standards, the rule of law, the value of human life.”
“Joining the EU will help us build a Ukraine that we can be proud of,” Yermak said, noting that “this (joining the EU-IF-U) should take place “as soon as possible.”
He also considers it necessary to develop practices for creating industrial parks and special regimes for IT companies.
Yermak urged businessmen to “be more active in making proposals and cooperating with the government and the President’s Office.” “The government, together with experts, should create a national plan for joining the EU. The plan should be as realistic as possible,” the head of the President’s Office said.
Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Chuque said that after the commissioning of the Greece-Bulgaria interconnector on Thursday, his country will be able to supply natural gas to Moldova and Ukraine, European Pravda reports with reference to the Romanian news portal Digi24.
“Essentially, this interconnector will connect the network passing through Anatolia and the Adriatic, as well as connect to the BRUA pipeline, thus ensuring gas supplies to Bulgaria and Romania,” Chuquet said at a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
“And, of course, we can provide gas supplies to our eastern partners – Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova and other countries according to the distribution scheme of this gas network,” the Romanian prime minister added.
COMMISSIONING, GAS, GREECE-BULGARIA, INTERCONNECTOR, MOLDOVA, ROMANIA, UKRAINE
The majority of medical experts, who had fled abroad due to the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, have come back and continue to work, practitioners and experts in the sphere of medicine said during a roundtable discussion hosted by the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency on Thursday.
“For the moment, 98% of personnel are in place. Some of them left for western Ukraine or abroad in the first months of the war, however, today almost all of them have come back and continue to work,” Head of the Department of Cardiometabolic Diseases of the Clinic for Adults of the State Institution “Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine,” PhD in Medical Sciences Yevhen Marushko said.
“Speaking about the personnel of the Filatov Institute, almost none of our employees left. Some 99% of our personnel stay here. There is a shortage of specialists in very specific profiles as there are few of them all over the country. If specialists, whom we already lack, leave, this has a negative impact on the level of medical assistance,” ophthalmologist of the highest category, head of the department of inflammatory pathologies of the eye and microsurgical treatment of their consequences at state institution “Filatov Institute of Eye Diseases and Tissue Therapy of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine” Oleksandra Zborovska said.
In turn, Business Development Director of ADONIS medical group of companies Svitlana Lonska said that the majority of the personnel of private medical institutions have returned, while those who are abroad also plan to come back soon.
Despite the fact that a maternity hospital was destroyed during large-scale military operations in Kyiv region, the doctors did not suspend their work and had to deliver babies under emergency conditions, she stressed.
At the same time, Head of the Department of Nephrology and Renal Replacement Therapy of the National University of Health Protection, owner of the Nephrology Clinic, Professor Dmytro Ivanov noted that the doctors and senior staff, who have returned to Ukraine, thus proved the level of their reliability.
“In the first two months we lost more than 60% of doctors and around 75% nurses in Kyiv in the first two months. Almost no medical personnel remained in the districts of Ukraine where military operations were conducted. Around 90% of medical staff have returned as of today. I think this could be considered a criteria of reliability of doctors and senior staff, for example, heads of departments and chief doctors,” Ivanov said.
Chief Physician of the National Cancer Institute, PhD in Medical Sciences Andriy Beznosenko said that the patient flow significantly reduced at the National Center Institute in the first month of the war.
“We received 150 patients during the first month of the war, while last year we received 2,700 patients during the same period of time,” he said.
The expert also noted that the specialists of the National Cancer Institute do the utmost to monitor the situation with the oncology centers in the temporarily occupied territories.
“Today, Kherson, Melitopol, Mariupol oncology centers and the one in Krasnyi Luch are under occupation. They lack personnel and there are patients there. But there are no medicines for treatment and we are unable to deliver them,” Beznosenko said.
Customs revenues in June increased by 33% compared to May, to UAH 12.69 billion, Yaroslav Zheleznyak, deputy head of the parliamentary committee on finance, tax and customs policy, said.
“The results of the work of customs in June: receipts amounted to UAH 12.69 billion. On the one hand, this is already 33%, or UAH 3.1 billion more than received in May from customs,” he said on the Telegram channel on Thursday .
Zheleznyak recalled that import exemptions were still in effect in June, which means that the June customs results indicate a gradual resumption of economic activity.
“On the other hand, such an income is only a third (32%) of what was supposed to come from customs in peacetime – the plan was UAH 34 billion,” Zheleznyak said.
