Partners news

Tuesday, May 25

Timothy Ash, the emerging market analyst, writes from London: “This is not just a defensive action from Lukashenko but a full frontal attack on the EU – an EU plane, travelling between two EU capitals, forced out of the air by an autocratic regime. If the ...

On July 1, a limited farm land market is to open. Sales only are allowed among Ukrainians and the limit is 100 hectares. In advance of this modest opening, farm land rents increased 6.5% yoy in 2020 to an average of 3,380 hryvnia/hectare, Ellina Yurchenko, a farmland expert for the Ukrainian Agrarian Business Club said ...

Editor’s Note: The 11th century, King Canute, the all-powerful King of England, Denmark and Norway, is remembered today for having his courtiers carry his throne down to a beach. His Majesty ordered the tide to stop...

Monday, May 24

Lviv City Council has approved construction of a cable car running from the Heavenly Hundred memorial and the governor’s ramparts to High Castle park. The city government hopes to attract a private investor to spend about $15 million to build the cable car an...

The EU will introduce its Covid ‘passports’ July 1 , reports Liga.net. In addition to vaccination data, these “Digital Green Certificates” may contain data on immunity as a result of a past illness, or a negative PCR test. Details can be found at this...

A Canadian court ruled Thursday that Iran’s Jan. 2020 shoot-down of a UIA passenger jet was “intentional” and an “act of terrorism. ” Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba ruled: “On a balance of probabilities…the missile attacks on Flight 752 were intentional.” He added: “The plaintiffs have established that the shooting...

President Zelenskiy has appointed Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics, to serve on the Supervisory Board of Ukroboronprom. During the first six months of the Zelenskiy presidency, Mylovanov, served as Economy Minister. Last fall, he returned to the government as an economic advisor to the President.

Editor’s Note: With Nord Stream 2 seemingly a done deal, Germany’s wishful thinkers say the geopolitical balance will not change if the Kremlin no longer needs the big pipe crossing Ukraine to the EU. In retort, ske...

Friday, May 21

The Rada has approved three new ministers: Oleksandr Kubrakov, for Infrastructure; Oleksiy Lubchenko for Economy; and Viktor Lyashko, for Health . Here are highlights of their speeches yesterday to the Rada.

Lyashko promised that every Ukrainian who wants to be vaccinated against coronavirus will get the two vaccinations by the end of this year , the Health Ministry reports on Telegram. Until this week, Ukraine’s Chief State Sanitary Doctor, Lyashko, has been involved in the fight against coronavirus since its start in Ukraine 14 months ago....

Concorde Capital’s James Hydzik writes: “In general, we see the replacements are good, at least from the reputational standpoint…Lyashko is very familiar with the government’s pandemic response from his time as chief sanitary officer…Lyashk...

The ousted minsters of Economy and Infrastructure will continue to hold roles in the Zelenskiy Administration, the President said yesterday at his press conference reviewing his two years in power. Ihor Petrashko, the former Economy Minister, will help coordinate the launch this summer of a farm land market. B...

DTEK officially launched Ukraine’s first industrial lithium-ion energy storage system yesterday, a pioneering entry into what is to be a billion dollar business in Ukraine during this decade. Maksym Tymchenko, DTEK’s CEO, said of the 1 MW battery in Zaporizhia: “This is first step toward building a new reliable, flexible energy system in Ukraine. We open door to other actors who will inves...

Ukraine will meet the 18-month deadline to synchronize its power system with the EU one Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, Ukrenergo board chairman, told the battery storage event. The head of Ukraine’s state-owned electricity distribution company, promised: “Synchronization of the Ukrainian energy s...

UIA is considering reopening flights to and from Tel Aviv on Monday, the airline reports. Flights stopped May 13 due to the Palestinian-Israeli missile exchanges. UIA asks travelers to check the airline site for updates.

Thursday, May 20

The EU 27 countries agreed yesterday to allow fully vaccinated tourists this summer from non-EU countries, Reuters has reported. Largely aimed at bringing back tourists from the US and Britain, the new rules would apply to Ukrainians fully vaccinated against Covid. To date, 1 million Ukrainians have receiv...

A domestic ‘vaccination passport’ – for entrance to schools, shopping centers, restaurants, theaters and gyms – would be supported by 27% of Ukrainians and opposed by 34%, according to a survey by Research & Branding Group conducted during the last week of April. Support grows with the age of respondents. For foreign travel, 44% of the 1,804 respondents see it as ju...

Car carrier trains to the Carpathian Mountains and to the Black Sea have proved increasingly popular since their debut in March , reported Ukrzaliznytsia. With the addition of auto wagons to Train No. 53/54 between Dnipro and Odesa, there are now seven trains that carry automobiles. The state railroad beckons: “Using this serv...

Ukraine’s State Aviation Service yesterday recommended that Ukrainian airlines suspend all flights to Tel Aviv until the Israeli-Palestinian missile exchanges stop. A check of Ben Gurion Airport’s arrivals and departure board shows cancellations for about half of flights from around the world to Israel’s main ...

Wednesday, May 19

Betting on strong Chinese demand for iron, Ferrexpo plans to spend $2 billion in capital investments to double its production of iron pellets by 2030 , reports Interfax-Ukraine. This year, the LSE-listed company is increasing production by 14%, to 12 million tons. A combination of strong Chinese demand and the Biden Administration’s planned infrast...

Prices for the iron and steel products exported by Metinvest have skyrocketed over the last year, according to Metal Expert, an industry consultancy. Compared to one year ago, the price jumps are: pig iron +71%; billet +77%; steel slab +104%; hot rolled coil steel +118%.

Dniprospetsstal, Ukraine’s main producer of specialty stainless steels, has increased output of finished products by 19% January-April, compared to the first four months of last year. Based in Zaporizhia, the electrometallurgical plant produced 56,000 tons through the end of last month.

Timothy Ash, of BlueBay Asset Management, writes: “Payouts increase markedly with higher real GDP growth. If real GDP growth accelerates to 5% in 2021, the payout might increase to around $900 million for that year. And, obviously, growth at 3% or lo...

For Ukrainians who like to vacation without Russians, Moscow is extending its ban on tourist flights between Russia and Turkey for one more month, to mid-June, reported Bloomberg. Although Turkey’s 3-week coronavirus lockdown ended Monday, the Kremlin ap...

Tuesday, May 18

In advance of today’s expected cabinet reshuffle, the Cabinet of Ministers let go three deputy ministers. Two Deputy Energy ministers were fired: Yuriy Boyko, responsible for electricity, and Oleksandr Zorin, responsible for coal. The Cabinet accepted the resignation of Svitlana Panaiotidi, a deputy minis...

This afternoon, the Rada is to meet in special session to decide on three ministries; Economy, Health, and Infrastructure. Concorde Capital predicts: “The most likely substitutes in the Cabinet are: Oleksiy Lyubchenko (Head of the Tax Administration) for Economy Minister; Oleksandr Kubrakov (Head of the state road administration Ukravtodo...

Ukrposhta plans to acquire a bank, Igor Smelyanskiy, CEO of the state postal operator, wrote on Facebook. He said that “The acquired bank will be small, without branches or with a small number of them (we have 11,000 of our own) and, o...

Kyiv’s Sikorsky airport is embarking on a 3-year, $100 million investment program to allow long haul jets to land by the end of 2023. The asphalt concrete runway is to be rebuilt with concrete and extended by 20%, to 2,770 meters. Often restricted by fog, the airport will receive a Category II ILS instrumental landing system. This w...

Today through Sunday, Odesa Wine Week is to boost tourism during a lull in Ukraine’s coronavirus pandemic. Designed to promote the brand ‘Ukrainian Wine,’ the event will draw vineyard directors, wine tasters and tourists to a mix of online and live events centered around the Premier Hotel Odesa. In January...

Due to the exchange of rockets between Israel and Palestinian Gaza, UIA has cancelled all flights between Ukraine and Tel Aviv through tonight. The suspension will be reviewed every 48 hours, the airline’s press service has said.

Munich-based FlixBus inaugurates Thursday its first domestic bus route in Ukraine, a marathon, 21-hour voyage that start in Zatoka, the Odesa region Black Sea resort, then circles through Kyiv, Zhytomir, Rivne, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and finally ends at the Carpathian mountain resor...

Monday, May 17

A cabinet shuffle is in the works. Tomorrow, the Rada is to vote on the Ministers of Economy, Health, and Infrastructure. Ihor Petrashko, Minister of Economic Development, Trade, and Agriculture, and Vladyslav Krykliy, Minister of Infr...

Also on Friday, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal asked parliament to fire Health Minister Maksym Stepanov. Appointed at the start of the Covid pandemic, 13 months ago, Stepanov was criticized for first trying to bypass Ukraine’s Western-designed procurement system, then for failing to procure enough vaccin...

By the end of May, Ukraine is to have received a total of 3 million vaccines. Officially, 48,075 people have died of coronavirus in Ukraine and more than 1.8 million people have recovered from the infection. In a UNICEF survey last month of 2,027 Ukrainian adults, 22% said they...

London-based Environmental Resources Management has been chosen by the Energy Ministry to draft a pilot project for finding a new future for a coal-based region. The pilot project is funded by Britain, a country which has struggled with this challenge since the 1980s. Germany and Poland also are advising Ukraine on the transition. With the number of coal miner...

Less than one year after receiving banking rights, Ukrposhta increasingly looks like a European-style postal savings bank. Now the Ukraine’s seventh largest purchaser of point of sale terminals, Ukrposhta has brought electronic banking to 3,200 branches, largely concentrated in villages of around 2,000 people. In the firs...

Friday, May 14

€300 million will be spent on Desautel SAS supplying Ukraine’s Emergency Services with 370 fire trucks with long ladders to fight fires in highrises that make up the majority of urban residential housing in Kyiv and other major cities. As with the locomotive, 85% will be financed by the French government, a mix of loans and guarantees from the Tre...

Boosted by booming world iron ore prices, Ukraine’s foreign trade was up 20% to $39.5 billion from January to April, compared to the same period last year, reported the State Customs Service. With bills for imported oil and gas rising 18%, to $3.5 billion, imports rose 21%, to $20.4 billion. The trade deficit for th...

Although iron ore exports were down 8%, to 14.2 million tons, earnings from Ukraine’s iron ore sales almost doubled, reaching $2.3 billion . With mines in Brazil and South Africa closed due to Covid-19 infections among staff, the world price of a ton of iron ore has jumped from $40 to $200, wrote Oleksandr Kalenkov, President of Ukrmetal...

Viktor Medvedchuk, the Ukrainian opposition leader who is a close friend of Vladimir Putin, is to spend two months under house arrest while awaiting trial for high treason. A Kyiv judge rejected yesterday a prosecutor’s request for jail in lieu of bail of nearly $11 million. The Russian president is the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter. In the 424-member Rada, Medvedch...

President Zelenskiy inaugurated the new building of the Kyiv School of Economics yesterday which is located on Mykola Shpaka Street, near the US Embassy. “The new KSE building is really impressive,” Zelenskiy said to Timofiy Milovanov, the Acting President of the business school who is also...

Ridership on the Kyiv Metro has dropped in half compared to 2019, prompting the municipal company to ask the city to save the transportation lifeblood for city offices and factories. Waving signs reading “Fair fares = safe travel,” Metro workers protested yesterday in front of City Hall, demanding at least $50 million in aid. Inside, subway administrators told the City Council tha...

Starting tomorrow, passengers flying from Ukraine to Turkey do not need to present negative results of a PCR coronavirus test, reports Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and Information Policy. Turkey’s national coronavirus lockdown is due to be lifted Monday morning.

Due to Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, UIA canceled three flights yesterday between Israel and Ukraine. A fourth flight PS778 from Tel Aviv to Kyiv was postponed. It is due to arrive today at 11:50 am. UIA asks passengers to check its website for updates. In light of the missile exchanges, Ukraine’s For...

Thursday, May 13

Rights to mine Lithium, titanium and gold deposits coming up for auction in Ukraine this year have prompted reports in International Mining, Hellenic Shipping News and S&P Global Platts . Investor interest is heightened by a forward-looking report published last week by the International Energy Association: “The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions.”

Noting “Ukraine has some of Europe’s biggest lithium reserves, but doesn’t currently produce the light metal,” S&P stresses Ukraine’s proximity to the EU and the free trade pact. Referring to a presentation by Roman Opimakh, head of Ukraine’s State Geological Service, S&P reports: “Three projects are now set to being auctioned: Kruta Balka with lithium oxide content ...

Separately, in July, Ukraine’s State Property Fund plans to auction state-owned United Mining and Chemical Company, Europe’s largest miner of ilmenite, the main source for titanium oxide. Ukraine produces 6% of global titanium ore and its proven reserves are among the world’s 10 largest. The first of this year’s ‘Big Privatizations,” the company is Europe’s only miner of rutile a...

To speed the delivery of Ukrainian iron ore to Polish steelmakers, Ukrzaliznytsia has started to electrify a key bottleneck: a 94 km stretch of track between Kovel, Volyn oblast, and Izov, on the Polish border. The crossing handles 90% of the freight tonnage between the two countries, largely iron ore from Kryvyi Rih. By el...

Russia’s Interior Ministry has reported last week that 527,000 people in Russia-controlled Donbas have been granted Russian citizenship over the last two years. Recently, a Russia parliament member said that number should reach 1 million by December. This would cover about half of the population believed to remain in the Russia-controlled portions of Donetsk ...

Mortgages, long a rarity in Ukraine, doubled to $50 million during this first quarter of 2021, compared to January-March of last year, reports the National Bank of Ukraine. The Central Bank has reported that the number of new mortgages increased by 51% yoy, to 1,811. Most mortgages are for dach...