Ukraine
Business
Journal
19:04 PM
Friday,
March 23, 2018
Ukraine
Business
Journal
Ukraine
Business
Journal
• Denmark’s Banke Electromotive has commissioned Bogdan Motors Corporation to build 15 electric garbage trucks this year. If production goes well at the Lutsk plant, production could increase to 200 a year. Earlier this month, Bogdan agreed to build five bus bodies for France’s Bolloré Group’s electric Bluebus line. Bogdan has already made electric buses for France and Poland. Noting that European countries are moving to ban diesel-powered vehicles from city centers, Bogdan predicts in a press release that electric will be a growth area for the factory, a 2-hour drive from Poland.
• Within five years, Ukraine will be a key world producer of lithium batteries for electric vehicles, Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan predicts in an interview with UBJ.am. “We have the largest reserve in the world of lithium,” he says. Noting Ukraine’s proximity to the EU, he adds: “We have a special transport advantage. You can take a battery 5,000 miles from China to Germany, or 500 miles from Ukraine.” He notes that an electric battery for a BMW car can weigh 400 kg and represent 40% of the car’s value.
• The Sea Ports Authority will spend $152 million this year on capital improvements, almost triple last year’s level, according to Raivis Veckagans, head of the Authority. Speaking in Odesa at the first British-Ukrainian Marine Infrastructure Forum, Veckagans said the money would go to dredging, modernization of berths and land infrastructure.
• Ukraine’s port charges are higher than comparable charges in the Netherlands, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria and other EU nations, Anatoliy Kinakh, President of the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, tells Interfax. To make Ukraine competitive, he argues, port charges must be cut in half.
• President Poroshenko signed Thursday a highway concessions law designed to create conditions for construction companies – foreign or national – to build toll roads.
• The Rada has ratified low interest loans from the European Investment bank to build high voltage 750 kV lines from two nuclear power plants. One 400 km line will bring power from Rivne in the west to Kyiv. A second line will take electricity 140 km south from Zaporizhie to Khakhovka, Kherson region.
• The EBRD is providing EUR 1.1 billion in credit lines and finance to small and medium-sized enterprises in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Also, the EU is providing EUR 58.3 in grants to SMEs in the three countries. All three countries have free trade pacts with the EU. The loans from come under the EU4Business program.
• The EBRD is lending $5 million to Dniprovska agro-industrial group to build a biogas plant that will run on chicken manure. One of Ukraine’s largest poultry producers, the company will build the plant at their Dniprovsky poultry farm in Dnipropetrovsk.
• Wind turbine orders have increased almost 6-fold at the Kramatorsk, Donetsk, plant of Fuhrlander Windtechnology, Ukraine’s only wind turbine manufacturer. Licensed by W2E of Germany, the company plans to make 17 turbines this year, a jump from three in 2016. Looking ahead, the company is considering building a 250 MW wind farm in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. This would involve erecting at least 60 125-meter high towers.
• UkraineInvest, the new investment promotion office, has become a state agency, according to a Cabinet of Ministers order on Wednesday. UkraineInvest works to cut through bureaucratic red tape to help foreign investors set up companies in Ukraine.
• A European Parliament committee has voted to extend the rules of the EU’s internal natural gas market to apply to Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. This could mean that the pipeline needs an independent operator. Concorde Capital writes: “As the single shareholder in Nord Stream 2, Gazprom either has to sell the company or remain only as its financial investor, having lost the ability to influence its operations.” Zenon Zawada writes: “Time will tell whether this action is too little, too late, considering how far the project has progressed. As recently as January, the German government granted Nord Stream 2 a permit for construction and operation in German waters.”
• The gap between household gas prices and market prices is widening again, warns Gösta Ljungman, the IMF Resident Representative in Ukraine. Lecturing economics students of Kyiv-Mohyla, he said: "Ukraine inherited an inefficient energy sector. For years, gas was sold to the population at prices that represented only a small share of its true market value." In 2016, bringing gas prices in line with market values "was a real breakthrough." Since then, he said, the price gap has widened, becoming a deal breaker for the IMF.
• Naftogaz plans to enter the eurobond market in 2018, company CEO Andriy Kobolev tells Bloomberg TV Europe. Noting that the energy company recorded $1 billion profits in 2017, he said he expects a positive reaction from bond buyers. He also predicted that Ukraine would become self-sufficient in gas in 2020.
• APK-Invest, Ukraine’s largest pork producer, plans to nearly double its swine herd this year, to 1 million pigs, its owner, Boris Kolesnikov, tells Interfax.In advance of its April annual meeting, APK-Invest released its 2017 numbers, showing $34 million net profit on assets of $200 million. Based in Donetsk Region, this vertically integrated agro-industrial company grows grain, makes compound feeds, raises pigs, and sells pork.
• Low sugar prices depressed Astarta’s net profits by 25%, to EUR 62 million. Ukraine’s largest sugar producer, Astarta has eight sugar factories, a land bank of 250,000 hectares, dairy farms and a soybean processing plant.
• In an election year vote that will please thousands of homeowners, the Rada approved a “building amnesty.”This accepts construction of most houses less than 300 square meters that were built between 1992 and 2015 without building permits.
• In a renaissance of Ukrainian film, more than 50 full-length films are being shot in Ukraine with the support of the Ukrainian State Film Agency, Philip Illienko, head of the agency, told reporters Thursday. He said: “In the overwhelming majority of the films, the main roles are played by Ukrainian actors.”
• Ukraine International Airlines, the nation’s dominant airline, lost $11.3 million last year. In 2016, it registered a net profit of $14.4 million. The company’s assets grew by 16% last year to $156 million.
• Ukraine is Europe’s most affordable nation, according to a survey by British company MoveHub, drawing on data from Numbeo's 2018 Cost of Living Index. Taking into account 50 factors -- meals at mid-range restaurants, gym memberships, bottles of wine and cappuccinos – Ukraine was the world’s third best value country for holders of dollars and euros. The two cheaper countries are Pakistan and Egypt.
