The Ukrainian government will propose to the Verkhovna Rada that a EUR 100 million 30-year loan provided by Poland at 0.15% per annum is unlocked. The respective bill was approved at the government meeting on Wednesday. “The loan agreement between the governments of Ukraine and the Republic of Poland entered into force in April 2016. However, due to difficulties with the performance of contracts by Polish enterprises, where Ukravtodor, road services in Lviv and Volyn regions, the State Fiscal Service (the assignee is the State Customs Service) act as customers, in particular with the import and purchase of necessary goods on the territory of Ukraine, the loan takedown amounted to only EUR 5.8 million,” the Finance Ministry said on its website.
The proposed changes clarify the list of operations, goods exempted from taxation, and the settlement of customs payments in Ukraine as part of the implementation of the relevant agreement between the governments of the two countries.
“Under the agreement, Ukravtodor will receive EUR 68 million (for the development of road infrastructure on the approaches to six checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Polish state border), the State Customs Service will get EUR 25 million (for the construction of checkpoints Shehyni, Krakovets, Rava-Ruska), the administration of the State Border Guard Service will receive EUR 7 million (for the reconstruction of seven departments of the border guard service),” the Finance Ministry said.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), under the Green Cities project, intends to provide Spetskomuntrans Communal Enterprise with a loan of EUR 28.5 million to finance the project for the rehabilitation and modernization of solid waste infrastructure in the city of Khmelnytsky, valued at EUR 36.5 million
According to information on the bank’s website, the decision on the project can be made on July 8, 2020. Now the project is under consideration.
The loan split into several tranches co-financed by up to EUR 5 million investment grant from the EU Neighborhood Investment Platform and up to EUR 3 million local contribution.
The project includes two phases. The phase I of the Project will address the city’s urgent investment needs with respect to the rehabilitation of the existing landfill, the construction of a new engineered sanitary landfill in compliance with the EU standards adjacent to the old one, the acquisition of new landfill equipment to ensure sustainable operation of the new landfill and improvements of the solid waste collection and transportation systems, co-financed from the city budget.
The phase II of the project includes the construction of a new material recovery facility for non-organic waste and a separate composting facility for pre-sorted organic waste. The EBRD said that this will reduce the share of solid waste going to the landfill.
Spetskomuntrans Communal Enterprise is responsible for the collection, treatment and disposal of municipal solid waste in Khmelnytsky. The company has contracts with more than 92,000 households and almost 3,000 commercial and public organizations for waste removal and disposal. The company is also an operator of the existing landfill located in the territory of the city.
EBRD, EUR, KHMELNYTSKY, LOAN, MLN
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has provided a four-year loan of EUR7.5 million to Bank Lviv for lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) under the EU4Business program, Anton Usov, the EBRD senior adviser on external affairs, has said.
“Small and medium-sized enterprises in western Ukraine will benefit from a new loan of up to EUR7.5 million to Bank Lviv provided under the EBRD EU4Business credit line. The loan will be available for disbursement in the Ukrainian hryvnia, which will protect Bank Lviv’s borrowers from foreign currency-related risks, and offer long maturities,” the EBRD noted.
“The funds are provided in the context of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) between the European Union (EU) and Ukraine. EU grants will be offered as investment incentives to eligible enterprises to reduce the cost of their capital expenditure on upgrades of technology and production processes to comply with EU standards and regulations,” it said on its website.
Bank Lviv is a regional bank providing banking services to SMEs and private clients across western Ukraine. It is well established in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lutsk, Rivne, Ternopil and Uzhgorod regions, as well as Kyiv.
The EBRD is a leading institutional investor in Ukraine and to date has committed more than EUR14.54 billion in over 460 projects to the country.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has held a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and in the context of a possible increase of financial assistance to Ukraine to fight against COVID-19 coronavirus, they agreed to redirect EUR 150 million under a German state loan to relevant needs.
“The parties discussed the situation around the spread of coronavirus in the world, as well as practical measures taken in both countries to counter the pandemic. It was agreed to work out the possibility of establishing information exchange related to the pandemic, in particular regarding medical standards introduced to treat the disease,” the press service of the head of the Ukrainian state reports on Tuesday.
Merkel positively noted the adoption of laws on the turnover of agricultural land and on the regulation of banking. In this context, she also noted the importance of early conclusion of negotiations with the IMF on a new cooperation program.
“They also spoke about the need to allocate additional funding for Ukraine from the European Union and the World Bank,” the message reads.
JSC Megabank (Kharkiv) has raised EUR 5 million to lend to micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME), according to a posting on the bank’s website. “The management of JSC Megabank signed an agreement with a fund managed by Swiss responsAbility Investments AG, an investment asset manager, on the provision of a loan totaling EUR 5 million on December 3,” the bank said.
According to Megabank Board Chairman Oleksiy Yatsenko, the loan term is three years.
Yatsenko added that negotiations with Swiss partners began in May 2019 in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina Sarajevo, and before signing the agreement, Megabank successfully passed due diligence.
According to the report, the current agreement with responsAbility Investments AG is already the second for Megabank. In November 2012, two private investment funds led by responsAbility provided the bank with two three-year loans totaling $4 million to support SME.
“We repaid the loan in due time in 2015. This year we decided to deepen our cooperation. We thank to the responsAbility Investments AG team for their trust. It is important for us to get an assessment of a bona fide bank. We are working further without losing momentum,” Yatsenko said.
According to the report, since the beginning of the year, the bank concluded five transactions with international partners for a total of $20 million in equivalent, of which $11 million were for programs supporting micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises.
Epicenter K LLC (Kyiv) is negotiating the financing of a project to expand grain storage infrastructure, purchase of agricultural machinery and grain hoppers for the amount of over EUR 100 million with the European Investment Bank (EIB).
“The Epicenter K company is in the negotiation process with the European Investment Bank regarding obtaining a loan of more than EUR 100 million, but the company has not yet made a final decision on obtaining it,” the company said.
As reported, the EIB board of director on November 14, 2019 approved a project to provide financing for the expansion of grain storage infrastructure, the acquisition of new agricultural machinery and equipment, as well as railway cars for grain transportation.
The bank expects that, thanks to the project, 1,100 additional permanent jobs will be created for new operations, 300 workers will be hired for the construction period and 15-20 local subcontracting small and medium-sized enterprises will be involved.
The EIB also indicates that this operation is covered by the political risk guarantee of the European Union for EIB loans outside the EU.
Epicenter K has been developing the agricultural business since 2016. The agricultural division of the Epicenter K group of companies cultivates over 120,000 hectares of land in Vinnytsia, Khmelnytsky, Ternopil, Cherkasy, and Kyiv regions. The group also includes 20 livestock farms and six silos. Epicenter K plans to reach one million tonnes of grain storage capacity.
