UkraineEconomy

. By contrast, the economy contracted by 0.8% in the last quarter of 2020. The disappointing first quarter results casts doubt on 2021 growth predictions, which are in the 4-5% range.

The regulator observes increasing interest of Ukrainian companies to the possibility to attract foreign funding, including through Eurobond placement. The amendments approved by the NBU will streamline the terms and conditions for raising funds and increase capital inflows into the Ukrainian economy and promote the country’s investment potential,” said Yuriy Heletiy, NBU Deputy Governor.

Danylo Hetmantsev, estimated the Chairman of the Rada’s Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, in an interview with Ukrinform, the state-owned news agency. “I believe that the size of the shadow economy is half of GDP,” he said. The exact figure no one can say, no research can be reliable, because the ‘shadow’ cannot be counted.”

Georgia reopens to foreign tourists today, after almost one year of quarantine. To enter Georgia, Ukrainians need to do two PCR tests – one within 72 hours of takeoff and a second 72 hours after arrival. In response, Ukraine’s SkyUp Airlines launches flights this week from  Kyiv Borsypil, Zaporozhia, Lviv, Odesa and Kharkiv to Tbilisi and Batumi. On Friday, Ukraine’s Health Ministry ranked Georgia as ‘Green’ is its coronavirus listing.

Rivals Wizz Air and Ryanair are gambling that Italy will open up for Ukrainian tourism at the end of this month. Starting March 28, Ryanair starts service from Lviv to Bari, Naples, Palermo, Pisa, Treviso and Turin. Wizz Air starts flights from Lviv to Catania and Verona. From Odesa, Wizz Air starts flights to Bologna, Milan-Malpensa and Treviso. From Kyiv Sikorsky, Wizz Air starts service to Bologna, Catania, Milan-Malpensa and Rome Fiumicino. Lumiwings, a new Greek charter airline, plans to

Bees Airline, a new Ukrainian lowcost startup, plans to start flying this month from Kyiv Sikorsky to Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Marsa Alam and in April to Mombasa, Kenya. The airline has leased two Boeing 737-800s that were used for nine years by UIA. Because of the pandemic, Bees reportedly was able to lease each Boeing for $10,000 a day – a 30% discount over pre-pandemic rates.

Bell Textron’s ‘Huey’ helicopters, the US military’s workhorse in the Vietnam War, will be assembled in coming months at Ukroboronprom’s Odesa Aviation Plant under license from the Fort Worth, Texas company. Formally called the Bell UH-1 Iroquois, the first helicopter should be started in time for Ukraine’s 30th Independence Day, Aug. 24, Yuriy Gusev, CEO of Ukraine’s defense conglomerate, said Friday after a visit to the plant. Most of the 16,000 Hueys made since 1952 have been manufactured in Texas

US investments in Ukraine are expected by the end of this year in a series of areas, Oksana Markarova, said in a lengthy interview with Ukrinform made prior to her traveling to Washington to take up her new post Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States. “We are already discussing a number of projects in the defense sector, energy, mining, agriculture, where I hope we will be able to show progress during the first six to twelve months,” she said. “Above

A five-year veteran of Ukraine’s Finance Ministry, Markarova dampened hopes that her main job is to get Ukraine’s IMF program back on track. She said: “Most of the central bodies of financial organizations are located in Washington, and I have a huge successful experience of working with them and a wide base of personal contacts at all levels, including managerial one, but working with the IMF is far from the main task of the ambassador to Washington.”

Ukraine will receive only one IMF tranche this year, predicts Fitch Ratings. Predicting that Ukraine will get less than one quarter of the $2.9 available under the June 2020 Standby Arrangement, the New York-based credit rating agency writes:  “Fitch envisions one IMF disbursement of $0.7 billion for 2021, $1.5 billion of other official funding, a higher Eurobond issue than the planned $1.4 billion, and a 0.2% GDP cut in budget reserves.”

Financial needs in the second half of this year will pressure the government to adopt the anti-corruption and free market reforms demanded by the IMF, Fitch predicted. Foreign debt repayments spike in September, to $2.2 billion, and government budget needs increase in the fall.

As Ukrainians gain confidence in money transfer systems, the amount of money transferred inside the country grew by 24% yoy in 2020, to the equivalent of $9.5 billion, reports the National Bank of Ukraine. It was the fourth consecutive year of growth over 20%.

The amount of money sent into Ukraine through money transfer systems increased by 19% yoy, to $2.7 billion. The average amount of one transfer increased by 7%, to $393. The top sources of money coming in by money transfers were: the US, Italy, and Israel. Overall, $12.1 billion was sent into Ukraine last year by informal and formal channels, estimates the central bank.

More movies, better food, and chatbots oriented toward business customers are in the works for Ukrzaliznytsia this year, Alexander Pertsovsky, director of the state railroad’s ‘Passenger Company,’ told Hromadske Radio Friday. Expanding pilot projects, the railroad plans to expand to all long distance trains, the sale of lunch boxes, business lunches, children’s menu and, in partnership with Sweet TV, onling access to 280 films and cartoons with Ukrainian voice overs.

A Viber and Telegram chatbot for buying tickets that UZ launched in January with Visa and Middleware Inc. is to be expanded to handle group sales and “the B2B segment,” said Pertsovsky. UZ is working on a wait list feature for tickets on sold out trains. To promote sales, UZ may pay conductors sales commissions.

UZ will buy 100 new passenger sleeper cars for an expected price of $109 million, according a tender posted last week on Prozorro, the online procurement platform. The tender closes March 30 and the cars are to be delivered by year end. UZ carries about 40% of Ukraine’s long distance passenger traffic.

To boost Black Sea tourism, almost 500 km of bicycle paths are to be built in Odesa and neighboring Mykolaiv regions. In Odesa, two paths totaling 420 km will run on two routes south of the city, Ukravtodor reports on Facebook. One 90km-circuit will connect the resort town of Chornomorsk, Hrybivka and Ovidiopol. A second 250-km ‘Big Bike’ route will run south past Zatoka, Shabo, to 16 and T-16-25 roads and will provide bicycle connections with Zatoka, Shabo, Serhiyivka and

Qatar’s state-owned power development company, Nebras, is buying control of 214 MW of Ukraine solar and wind plants from Vasyl Khmelnytsky and his partners, according to a filing with Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee. The sale of these eight operating plants follows the 2019 sale by Khmelnytsky’s UDP Renewables of three solar plants to a Polish unit of Spain’s Acciona Energia Global.

Germany’s shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd AG is launching three container trains from Odesa – to Dnipro, to Kyiv and to Kharkiv. Each ‘block train’ will leave Odesa three times a week with 30-45 containers. A fast-growing segment, container trains grew by 41% last year in Ukraine. Based in Hamburg, Hapag-Lloyd is the world’s fifth largest container carrier in terms of vessel capacity.

Ukrzaliznytsia carried 16 million passengers on long distance trains last year, 30% of the volume of 2019. About 15% of passengers traveled on the elite Intercity and Intercity + high-speed trains, the state railroad reports. For all long-distance trains, the most popular routes last year were: Kyiv – Kharkiv: 712,700 passengers; Kyiv-Lviv – 652,800; Kyiv-Dnipro – 561,800; Kyiv-Vinnytsia – 472,600; and Kyiv-Odesa – 383,500.

Ukraine cut its coal import bill last year by 40% yoy, to $1.7 billion, reports, the State Customs Service. Ukraine cut its volume of imported coal by 22%, to 17 million tons. In dollar terms, the top three suppliers were: Russia – $1 billion, or 62% of the total; US – $480 million, 28%; and Kazakhstan — $126 million, or 7.5%.

After this week’s cold weather, ice breakers started work yesterday in Ukraine’s four most affected ports: Bilhorod-Dnistrovs’kyi, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Olvia.

Despite the coronavirus lockdowns, retail trade increased last year by 8.4% yoy in real terms, rep   orts the State Statistics Service. Fastest growth regions were: Kyiv – 19%; Zaporizhia – 16%; and Chernihiv -14%.

Ukraine’s economy contracted by 4.4% in 2020 — far less than the estimates of 6-7% made last May, when the country was still in a severe lockdown, reported the National Bank of Ukraine. Despite a slow start to 2021, the Central Bank forecasts 4.2% growth this year. The current 2.5-week lockdown, which ends Monday morning, is having only a ‘restrained’ impact on the economy, Dmytro Sologub, Deputy Governor of the bank, told reporters yesterday.

The Central Bank board decided yesterday to key Ukraine’s prime interest rate at 6%, the level it reached last June. In the 15 months prior to June 2020, the National Bank of Ukraine cut prime by two thirds, from a recent high of 18%.

Eying inflation, the Central Bank warned that if inflation increases, “the National Bank will raise the discount rate. This will curb the acceleration of inflation in 2021 and return it to 5% in 2022.” The Central Bank forecasts that inflation will rise from last year’s 5% to 7% in 2021. Pushing inflation up during the first half of this year will be: strong consumer demand, higher energy prices, higher wages and carryover food inflation from last year’s worse crop yields.

Average borrowing costs for businesses dropped by 45% over the last year, Kyrylo Shevchenko, Governor of the Central Bank, told reporters yesterday. “As for the cost of loans for businesses in the national currency, the rates decreased from 14.8% in December 2019 to 8.2% in December 2020,” he said. “For example, the cost of mortgage loans decreased from 19.6% in December 2019 to 12.1% in December 2020.”

The contract of Petr Krumphanzl, Chairman and CEO of PrivatBank, expires tomorrow. While the Board looks for a successor, leadership of Ukraine’s largest and most profitable bank will go to Anna Samarina, Deputy Board Chair for Finance. During his three years at the helm of PrivatBank, Krumphanzl, a Czech, increased the bank’s profitability and moved strongly into online banking. He also was the target of harassment – legal and physical – by employees of Ihor Kolomoiskyi, who owned the bank

President Biden should bolster “US support for Ukraine in order to get the country back on the reform track,” Andy Hunder, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, urges in a new essay for the Washington-based Atlantic Council. “Over the next four years, Biden can play an historic role in helping Ukraine eliminate corruption and free itself once and for all from oligarch control,” Hunder writes. Noting that Biden visited Ukraine six times when he was Vice President,

“The top priorities of the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy must be to curtail Russian aggression, reduce corruption, and contain the oligarchs…What Ukraine’s shady oligarchs fear most of all is US Justice,” Hunder writes in the piece headlined: “Why Ukraine’s business community has high hopes for the Biden presidency.” He concludes: “The business community is now pinning its hopes on President Biden to back Ukraine during what promises to be a decisive period in the country’s independent history.”

Turkey’s Doğuş İnşaat ve Ticaret A.Ş submitted a winning $402 million bid to win Ukravtodor’s tender build a 1.7 km cable suspension bridge across the Dnipro at Kremenchuk, Poltava oblast, the state highway agency reports. Designed to be the most modern Dnipro bridge within a 500 km radius, the Kremenchuk bridge will have four lanes and approaches suitable for heavy truck traffic moving from cargo the Left Bank to the Black Sea ports. Construction is to start this year and

Concorde Capital’s Alexander Paraschiy calculates that the purchase was at 90% of par and writes: “This is also a good signal for the holders of GDP warrants, as it indicates MinFin is anticipating large payments under the warrants in the mid-term.”

Timothy Ash writes: “Now most official forecasts have a 4% plus growth for 2021.With the changes at the [central bank], the Zelenskiy administration is going for a pro-growth agenda, which might mean lower rates, cheaper currency, perhaps looser fiscal – note minimum wage hikes.

In a sign the Corona-recession has eased, Ukraine’s electricity consumption in July was only 0.7% below last year’s level, according to Ukrenergo, the nation’s state power transmission company.  Industrial consumption was down 3.2% yoy, but household consumption was up 4.7% and consumption by chemical industries was up 15%.

The central bank expects to receive the second tranche from the IMF by the end of this year, Kyrylo Shevchenko, the new governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, says in an interview with RBK-Ukraina. The IMF approved the 18-month, $5 billion program on June 9, and the first tranche — $2.1 billion — was disbursed three days later. Release of the remaining $2.9 billion depends on four reviews. However, Shevchenko’s predecessor, Yakiv Smoliy quit on July 1, citing pressure

Last week, the central bank bought $223 million, strengthening the hryvnia mildly to UAH 27.3/$1. So far this year, the National Bank of Ukraine has bought $1 billion more than it sold, latest data show. Demand for dollars this summer has been weak as vacationers are largely bottled up inside the country, unable to take advantage of visa-free access to the EU.

Last year, Ukrainians made 26 million trips out of the country, while foreigners made 15 million trips here, according to the State Statistics Service. Tourism accounts for only 1.5% of Ukraine’s GDP, well below Belarus – 6.4% — and Georgia – 26.3%. To generate more inbound tourism, Ukraine has dropped visa requirements for Chinese tourists and allowed Indians, South Africans and Filipinos to apply for visas on line. “Simple arithmetic shows the advantages of visa liberalization: the average check of

Reminder: UIA is offering two direct Kyiv-New York-Kyiv flights – next Monday Aug. 24, and the following Monday, Aug. 31. No additional New York flights are scheduled. Tickets only are available through the UIA site:  https://www.flyuia.com/ua/en/home.

For Ukraine, the biggest impact of strikes spreading across Belarus may be a shortage of asphalt for President Zelenskiy’s $3 billion drive to pave 4,000 km of highways this year. Ukraine imports half of its asphalt in heated, liquid form from Belarus. “Objectively, there is nothing to replace Belarusian volumes — and this is half of the market,” Serhiy Kuyun, director of the A-95 Consulting Group, writes on his Facebook page. “Russian supplies are closed, and Ukrainian traders are just mastering

Ukraine also gets about one third of its diesel and gasoline from Belarus. But the strikes and slowdowns will only result in a ‘hiccup’ for Ukrainian prices, Kuyun predicts. “First, we have been living with a huge surplus of diesel fuel and gasoline for half a year. Traders sell it to zero at best, the market is so overwhelmed. Second, the Ukrainian market is open for supplies from all sides.”

Most of Ukraine’s imports of Belarus petroleum products come from the Belarus’ largest refinery, in Mazyr, on the Pripyat River, 250 km north of Kyiv. According to Argus Media, it appears that Mazyr workers will be on a 3-hour lunchtime strike this week. At Naftan refinery, near Belarus’ northern border with Lithuania, workers are on strike. The refinery which is owned by Belneftekhim, was already shut down for scheduled maintenance.

On the IT front, Ukrainian IT companies are “already accepting individual divisions of IT companies in Belarus as guests,” Olha Kunichak, manager of the European Business Association’s IT Committee tells Interfax-Ukraine. “Ukrainian IT companies are ready to cooperate and help our northern neighbors.” To restrict protesters, the Belarus government has been shutting off the Internet. Ukraine started this summer a fast track program to grant work permits to foreign IT specialists. According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, Ukrainian universities only

Belarus Eurobonds handed investors a loss of 5.1% this month, the worst performance in emerging markets, according to a Bloomberg Barclays index. Since the 2031 bonds were issued on June 25, the yield is up by one percentage point.

Ukraine is recalling its ambassador from Belarus to protest Lukashenko’s “repeated and groundless” statements against Ukraine, Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said yesterday. President Lukashenko’s return to of Russia mercenaries who had fought on the separatist side in the Donbas war, “derailed the trust between our nations and inflicted a heavy blow upon our bilateral relations,” Kuleba said.

Leases for 4,262 empty buildings totaling 2.5 million square meters – or 10 times New York’s Empire State Building – will go up for electronic auction this fall under streamlined rules approved last week by the Cabinet of Ministers, announces Leonid Antonenko of the privatization department of the State Property Fund. The full of list of leases to auctioned by ProZorro.Sales includes: 1,070 offices, 837 warehouses, 566 factories, 61 spaces at airports, and six sites for renewable energy plants at

Ukraine ranks first in a ranking of 39 Eastern European and developing countries for public procurement transparency. Following 64 indicators for the Transparency Rating, the authors placed Ukraine at the top with a score of 97% and Tajikistan at the bottom with a score of 38%. Poland got  74%, Hungary 67% and the Czech Republic 65%. Russia and Belarus were not studied by the group, the Soros-funded Institute for the Development of Freedom of Information. For the last four years,

Ukraine’s Finance Ministry has repurchased about 10% of outstanding GDP-linked securities, the Finance Ministry announced Friday on the Irish Stock Exchange. Known as GDP warrants, the securities have payouts triggered by two consecutive years of GDP growth. By spending up to $300 million to quietly buy back these securities, the government may be expecting a post-Coronavirus growth bounce next year. After Ukraine’s economy GDP fell 11.4% in Q2, the central bank predicts that economy will shrink by 6% this year,

Supermarket chain Novus plans to open 10 new stores in Kyiv by the end of 2021, Ihor Landa, CEO of BT Invest Ukraine, the company that runs Novus, tells Interfax-Ukraine. He says the chain plans to expand because purchasing power is growing in greater Kyiv, now home to 10% of Ukraine’s population. Novus has 750 unfilled job vacancies.

For the first time, Ukrainian regional real estate projects will have their own stand at MIPIM, the leading European investment exhibition for the international real estate market. On show will be Ivano-Frankivsk’s Promrylad, a $25 million project to convert a Soviet era factory into modern multiuse space, says Anna Nestuly, Ukraine organizer of Ukraine’s delegation to the March 10-13 fair in Cannes. Counting the Kyiv city stand and the Ukraine regions stand, Ukraine’s delegation is to number 100, double the

Ukraine should aim to triple IT workers, to 650,000, and nearly triple IT export revenue, to $13 billion a year, Kira Rudik, a leader of the Rada’s Digital Transformation Committee, said in Zaporizhia. “The IT industry is growing fast,” said Rudik, former CEO of Ring Ukraine, now owned by Amazon.  “We are an agrarian country. We have every chance to become a technological country. What we need to do to achieve this is increase export revenue to $13 billion a