The government bond auction raised the hryvnia equivalent $30 million – the lowest proceeds of the year and less than one third the level of the previous week. Bond yields did not change, ranging from 11.14% for one-year bonds to 12.3% for three-year bonds. There will be no auction next week due to the Independence Day holiday on Tuesday. ICU writes: “This a...
Starting today, the EU recognizes Covid certificates from Ukraine, opening the way for easier travel, the European Commission said. Under an “equivalence decision,” Ukrainian certificates now are connected to the EU Digital Covid Certificate system. EU certificates s...
Editor’s Note: This afternoon, Ukraine’s four-day Independence Day weekend starts — inevitably with a traffic jam. On Wednesday, I fly my family to the US for a ‘vaccination vacation’ – second shots. Before th...
PrivatBank lawyers have added Israel to the list of countries where they are suing the bank’s former owners Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov. The lawsuit accuses the duo of fraud, misappropriation and money laundering stemming from the transfer of $600 million from PrivatBank in 2007-2011 and deposit into an account at the Israeli bank Disc... #KolomoiskyandBogolubov #PrivatBankagainstKolomisky #PrivatBanksuingKolomoisky
During the first half of this year, Ukraine suffered a net decrease in population of 205,200 people, reports the State Statistics Service. With only 132,600 births recorded, the ratio of deaths to births is 2.64 to 1. The Service estimates that Ukraine’s population is 41.4 million people. However in ... #PopulationDecrease #UkrainePopulation #UkrainePopulationDecrease
People entering Ukraine with only one Covid vaccination shot no longer need to self-isolate, the Cabinet of Ministers ruled yesterday. The government also recognized that only one shot of the Johnson & Johnson shot is needed for full vaccination. #EnteringUkraineRules #EnterUkraine
During the upcoming Independence Day holiday, Monday Aug. 23 and Tuesday Aug. 24 are banking holidays , the National Bank of Ukraine announces on Facebook. To compensate for the loss of Aug. 23, Saturday, August 28 is a normal working day. #BankingDayUkraine #NationalBankofUkraine #nbu
Editor’s Note: German Chancellor Merkel arrives in Moscow tomorrow to meet with Russian President Putin. Undoubtedly, the leaders – one from each end of the Nord Stream pipeline — will adopt pious poses and as...
Closer to home, he said 10-year-old talks with Turkey on a free trade agreement “are now almost complete. ” Liubchenko, who is also First Deputy Prime Minister: “Preparatory work has been carried out for negotiations with Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan.” #FreeTrade #FreeTradeAgreement #turkeyandukraine #UkraineandTurkey
Turning to the EU, Ukraine’s largest bloc trading partner, Liubchenko said that exports to the EU grew by 45% yoy during the first half, to $12.4 billion. He added: “More than 14,000 Ukrainian companies export their products to the EU.
After a 75% plunge in foreign visitors to Ukraine last year, tourism is starting to recover, registering a 9% increase in visitors during the first half of this year , compared to the second half of last year. From January to June, 1.4 million foreigners visited Ukraine, sharply down from nearly 6 million in the first half of 2019. #TraveltoUkraine #UkraineTourism
Covid controls and new flights are changing the arrivals. Over the last three months, 35,193 tourists visited from Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Saudi Arabia – a 40-fold increase compared to last year. Of the Gulf tourists, 85% c... #TorurisminUkraine #TraveltoUkraine2021 #VIsitingUkraine #VisitUkraine
The number of Americans visiting is up 70% yoy, to 34,000 , the State Agency for the Development of Tourism writes on Facebook. The number of Israelis increased by 26%, to 26,600. As per tradition, the top five sources of visitors were: Moldova – 368,000; Ru... #AmericansinUkraine #AmericansTraveltoUkraine #VisitUkraine
Outbound tourism was up 15% for the first half, compared to January-June of last year. Despite Covid travel barriers, 5.7 million Ukrainians traveled abroad – four times the number of foreigners who visited Ukraine. The top two destinations were ne... #TouristsfromUkraine #Ukrainetourists
Quote of the Day: “The cases of Ukraine and Afghanistan have almost nothing in common. Yet Kyiv should learn an important lesson now: Foreign assistance is not a universal silver bullet in national defense…Afghan... #Afghanistan #AfghanistanandUkraine #Afghanistansituation
Editor’s Note: What is a centner? Yesterday, at 1:30 am, I checked Miriam-Webster, which came up with this definition: “Any of various units of weight used especially in Europe and usually equal to about 110 pounds ...
The central bank expects a coronavirus outbreak in the autumn, a contagion that “will delay the recovery of economic activity to the level it was before the pandemic,” Serhiy Nikolaichuk, a deputy governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, tells Forbes Ukraine. No... #Coronovirusoutbreak
The number of Ukrainians receiving unemployment benefits in August is 36% below the level of one year ago, reports the State Employment Service. The drop of recipients to 273,000 people indicates “a gradual economic recovery,” the Economy Ministry said. #UnemploymentUkraine
“Afghanistan collapse sparks wave of alarm in Ukraine” is the headline for an Atlantic Council piece by Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the New Europe Center, in Kyiv. “For observers in Ukraine, which looks to the US as a key ally in its undeclared seven-year war with Russia, the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan represents a particularly ominous sight,” she ... #AfganistanandUkraine #AfganistannewPower
Editor’s Note: My citation Friday of a New York Times article casting cold water on Ukraine’s hopes for hydrogen drew several emails of protest from readers. Richard Deitz, an American wind power developer in Ukrain...
Andriy Vlasenko, head of the State Food and Grain Corporation, was arrested early Friday morning at Kyiv Zhuliany as he attempted to board a plane out of the country. On Thursday afternoon, the National Police announced that officials at the company organized a scheme that defrauded the state of $57 million. The charges and the arrest may signal that the government... #AndriyVlasenkoarrested #UkraineFoodandGrainCorporation
Wind towers under construction in southern Ukraine rise 180 meters. By contrast, the Soviet-era Duga over the horizon radar near Chornobyl rises 150 meters. When completed next year, the Zaporizhiya bridge is to be the 8th tallest cable bridge in Europe. #energyukraine #WindEnergyUkraine #WindTowersUkraine
Ukrainians accounted for half of the 351,670 foreigners granted Russian citizenship during the first half of this year, reports TASS, citing Russian Interior Ministry figures. It did not say how many of the 184,385 Ukrainians granted passports live in the Russia-controlled parts of Ukraine. In addition 23,600 more Ukra... #RussianCitizenship #UkrainiansGetRussianCitizenship
Editor’s Note: The breathtakingly fast collapse of the Afghan National Army should not intoxicate strategists in Moscow. They cannot reproduce the falling dominoes of 1975. In that year, Moscow-supported movements s...
Procurement of scrap metal, a major commodity in post-Soviet economies, is up 43% yoy, to 2.35 million tons, reports the Ukrainian Association of Secondary Metals, or UAVtormet. Exports, largely to Turkey, are up 19.5 times yoy, to 334,600 tons. Supplies to Ukraine’s steel mills increas... #ScrapMetalFromUkraine #UkraineScrapMetal
A Chinese container train is rolling across Siberia, following a new route to Kyiv. Shunning the western China-Kazakhstan route, Eurosib sent 41 containers by sea from China to Vladivostok. From the Russian Far East, the train is traveling west on the Trans-Siberian Railway. One year... #CargoTrains #chinesetrains #UkrainianRailways
So far this year, 32,000 tourists have visited Chornobyl, close to the 36,000 for all of last year, Kyrylo Harnyk, an official with the Exclusion Zone Management agency, told a Chornobyl tourism roundtable yesterday. Two weeks ago, Ukrzaliznytsia sent the first test train down the Vilcha – Yaniv tra... #Chornobyl #Chornobyltourism
Editor’s Note: Thanks to musical chairs at UZ, we regularly watch the spectacle of a new CEO washing the railroad’s dirty laundry in public. The routine is partly kicking dirt on the predecessor, partly lobbying for...
Ukraine cut exports of organic food products by 30% last year, but earned 8% more, according to a Swiss-Ukrainian study, cited by organicinfo news site. The EU bought 73% of the 332,000 tons of organic food exported last year by Ukraine. By selling 80 organic products to 40 countrie... #FoodExportfromUkraine #OrganicFoodExport #Ukraineexports
Japan lifted its ban on importing eggs and poultry from Ukraine last week. This move will help fuel a 30% increase in bilateral trade this year, Ukraine’s Ambassador to Japan Serhiy Korsunsky tells Dom TV. “Japanese standards are higher than European, and even American,” he ... #EggEsporttoJapan #Eggexport #JapanandUkraine #PoultryexporttoJapan
About 20 ‘abandoned’ freight trains are idling on sidings around the nation, stopped b a lack of locomotives, RailInsider reports in a lengthy story, largely confirmed by UZ officials. In recent years, the number of working locomotives has dropped by one quarter – from 2,699 i... #TrainSystemDisaster #UkraineRailRoad #UkraineRailroadDisaster #UkraineRailRoadproblems
“Saudi tourists help revive Ukraine’s Covid-hit travel industry,” reads an article from Lviv by Spain’s Efe news agency. Spending in Ukraine by tourists from Saudi Arabia and neighboring Gulf countries his $25 million in June and probably $50 million in July, says A... #SaudiTourists #TourisminUkraine #TraveltoUkraine
Editor’s Note: With the flood of grain coming off the fields, Ukraine’s silos will start bursting at their welds next month. Ukraine’s privately run farms are doing fine. Ukraine’s privately run ports are doing fine...
The lure of working in Poland burns bright for Ukrainians, Jakuk Dudziak, spokesman for Poland’s Foreigners Office, tells Polish Radio. During the first half of this year Ukrainians accounted for 75% of the 42,000 foreigners who gained long term residency per... #ukrainiansinpoland #workingabroad #workinginpoland
Are the crowds at Kyiv Boryspil’s Terminal D getting on your nerves? You can lease Terminal C! The State Property Fund is putting up for auction the 3,000 square meter terminal. Built in 1995, the now vacant terminal comes with a private access road, private parking an... #BoryspilAirport
Editor’s Note: Getting the Pfizer vaccine at Boryspil Airport turned into a 3-hour ordeal for my wife and me that I would not wish on anyone. Despite Ukraine’s vaunted IT capabilities, it took the attendants 10-20 m...
Ukraine’s annual inflation rate hit 10.2% last month, the highest level in three years, the State Statistics Service reported yesterday. The National Bank of Ukraine predicts inflation will peak in September at 11.2%. A main stimulus is the yoy rise in energy prices – natural gas up 164%...
For food, prices for fruit and vegetables dropped this summer, as expected. But over the year, sugar is up 83.5%; sunflower oil is up 79%; and eggs are up 33%. All three foods are exported from Ukraine. This ties domestic price to world prices.
Ukraine’s average import price of natural gas in July was 2.5 times higher than one year earlier , the Economy Ministry reports, citing State Customs Service data. The average July price of $357 per 1,000 cubic meters was 7% higher than June. This is the highest level since January, 2015.
Higher prices are coming. Last week, EU prices hit $525 per 1,000 cubic meters. Last week, the top price on the Ukrainian Energy Exchange hit $674 per 1,000 cubic meters. Prices expected to remain high until next spring.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits Ukraine on August 22 – one week before President Zelenskiy meets President Biden in the White House. Foregoing Zelenskiy’s invitation to Merkel to attend Ukraine’s 30th Independence celebrations on Aug. 24, Merkel will talk with Zelenskiy about Nord Stream 2 and Russia’s occupation of half of the Don...
Amos Hochstein, a US veteran of international energy diplomacy, will be Biden’s point man for Nord Stream 2, Axios reports in a story headlined: “Biden taps Russia hawk for key energy post.” Hochstein is remembered in Ukraine for resigning from the Naftogaz Supervisory Board last October. In a Kyiv Post oped...
The US, Britain and Canada unveiled sanctions against the government of Alexander Lukashenko yesterday — the one-year anniversary of presidential elections he is widely believed to have stolen . The US penalties target Belaruskali OAO, the state-owned potash producer, and 15 companies with ties to Lukashenko. The UK penalties go further, prohibiting purchases of transferable securities and ...
Alexander Kamyshin, a former investment manager for Rinat Akhmetov’s SCM group, will be acting CEO of Ukrzalyiznytsia until the end of this year , the state railroad’s Supervisory Board announced yesterday. Ivan Yuryk, who filled in as acting CEO since April, returns to his duties as finance director for the railroad.
Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov hailed the appointment writing on Facebook that topping the list of “main tasks for the development of the industry that need to be implemented in the shortest time are raising tariffs for freight transportation, because wi...
Up to 32 new business centers will open in Kyiv by the end of next year, Volodomyr Heliuta, managing partner of UTG Offices, tells Interfax-Ukraine. The leasable area adds up to 670,000 square meters – almost one third of existing office space in Kyiv. “Frozen and postpone...
Kyiv and Lviv lead Ukraine’s five largest cities for rising office space costs. During the first half of this year, the purchase price of Kyiv office real estate increased by 18.4% yoy, $2,269 per square meter – more than double the national average of 8.4%. Office rents increase...
With e-commerce booming, warehouse prices grew at double digits in Lviv, Kyiv and Dnipro . Sales prices for warehouses grew by 40% yoy in Lviv, by 31% in Kyiv, and by 27% in Dnipro.
New apartment prices have risen across Ukraine by an average of 16% since the start of last year, according to a study by OLX Real Estate. In Kyiv, the nation’s most expensive major market, the jump was 22%. In Kyiv, average prices for new apartments are: $41,000 for 1-bedroom; $59,000 – for...
By the end of this year, Ukraine will receive another 17 million doses of the German-American Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine , Ihor Kuzin, Ukraine’s chief sanitary doctor, told RFE/RL. This would allow the vaccination of 8.5 million Ukrainians. So far 4 million have been vaccinated.
