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  • Norway’s NBT Invests €1.6 billion in Ukraine Wind
  • China Looks at Ukraine Hydro
  • After Beirut, Controls Tighten on Nitrogen Fertilizers
  • Dutch, Koreans Invest in Mykolaiv Port
  • Good Investment: Modern Grain Silos

Norway’s NBT plans to invest €1.6 billion in Ukraine over the next year, Joar Viken, the company CEO, told President Zelenskiy last week. NBT is investing €1.2 billion to build Zophia, an 800 MW wind farm in southern Zaporizhia, on the northern shore of the Azov. The company also plans to invest €140 million to upgrade local power systems. In addition, NBT is spending €300 million to build with H2LLC a 200 MW hydrogen production plant, also in Zaporizhia.

China Gezhouba Group Corporation is interested in building hydro projects in Ukraine, Ukraine’s Ambassador to China, Serhiy Kamyshev said after meeting the company’s chairman Lyu Zexiang. The contractor for the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s biggest hydro power producing dam, Gezhouba is aggressively moving abroad, seeking to raise international contracts to half of it’s revenue.

In the wake of the massive ammonium nitrate explosion in the port of Beirut, Ukraine, a major importer and consumer of fertilizers, is to tighten up its handling of this potentially hazardous product. President Zelenskiy ordered Prime Minister Shmygal to take measures to prevent ‘manmade disasters’ from the mishandling of “fertilizers, which, due to their intrinsic properties, can pose a threat to the life and health of people.” Last year, Ukraine imported about 500,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, largely by sea.

Andrey Stavnitser, CEO of TIS, a major Odesa region port terminal, said his father, Aleksey, stopped handling ammonium nitrate in 2008 for safety reasons. Andrey Stavnitser wrote on Facebook that TIS used to transship 3 million tons a year, sometimes storing as much as 200,000 tons at one time. The Beirut explosion is traced to the storage of 2,750 tons in a warehouse.

Ukraine’s largest nitrogen fertilizer producer, Dmytro Firtash’s Ostchem Holding, released a statement saying the company follows “international standards” for safety and production. Important point: the most dangerous is not so much production as storage of so-called of bulk ammonium nitrate,” says the press release. “Almost 95% of ammonium nitrate at our plants is stored separately in hermetically packed special soft containers made of polypropylene fabric big bags, which significantly reduces its explosiveness.”


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Renaisco BV, a Dutch subsidiary of Glencore International, has won Ukrainian government permission to acquire a majority stake in Avery, one of Ukraine’s leading vegetable oil exporting complexes. Owned by Kyiv’s OREXIM and located in the port of Mykolaiv, Avery has a tank farm of 40 tanks, an annual transshipment capacity of 1.6 million tons, and enough berths to load three ocean going vegetable oil tankers at the same time.

South Korea’s export credit agency, the Export-Import Bank of Korea, is providing $36 million in financing to a joint venture between Posco International, Korea’s largest trading company, and OREXIM on the MMW grain terminal in Mykolaiv. The joint venture used the original financing to expand MMW, increasing its annual grain storage capacity to 2.5 million tons.  CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang advised on the cross border deal.

Over the last decade, 14 million tons of simultaneous storage capacities have been commissioned in Ukraine, raising the total to 51 million tons, about half of this year’s forecast crop. About one third of Ukraine’s granaries are modern metal silos holding up to 100,000 tons. The rest are largely reinforced concrete leftovers from the collective farm era, reports Elevatorist news site.

Most of the new construction has been in central Ukraine, in five oblasts responsible for 35% of the nation’s grain production: Poltava, Vinnitsa, Chernihiv, Cherkasy and Kirovohrad.With climate change, the elevator potential in the western and northern regions increases, where grain production is currently increasing,” says Alexander Lavrinchuk, an expert elevator business.

KMZ Industries, grain storage and processing equipment manufacturer, expects sales to increase by 60% yoy, the company tells Interfax-Ukraine. With 42 projects underway, Valery Kalashnik, attribute the growth to the high level of profitability of investments in the storage and processing of grain. The company makes silos, grain dryers and separators and transport equipment – bucket elevators, belt, and screw conveyors.

Sales of new commercial vehicles, a key indicator of business activity, were up 11% in July yoy. The July figure of 1,163 was 53% higher than June, reports Ukravtoprom.

Planning to build 2,900 km of cement roads by 2025, Oleksandr Kubrakov, head of Ukravtodor argues: “Concrete roads should be cheaper in Ukraine because we import 60% of bitumen, but cement is domestic.” With temperatures Kyiv to top 28C again, city authorities are banning the entry of heavy trucks from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Heavy trucks damage asphalt in hot weather.

 

  • EU Gas Traders Park Gas in Ukraine
  • Russia Loses Another Customer: Belarus Imports its Oil Through Odesa
  • Future US Ambassador Warns About China Buying Ukraine Defense Technology
  • Used Car Imports Flood Ukraine

European gas traders have more than quadrupled the volume of natural gas they store in western Ukraine’s underground reservoirs, reports Ukrtransgaz. Offshore companies have parked 5.3 billion cubic meters under a customs warehouse regime that allow them to store gas duty free, paying only rent. As Europe’s gas reservoirs fill up with cheap gas, the number of companies storing gas in Ukraine has jumped to 68 today, from 28 this time last year.

Ukrtransgaz has 11 underground gas storage facilities with a total capacity of 31 bcm – equal to the total storage capacity of Italy, France, Hungary and Austria combined. The Ukrainian gas market has become the safety valve of Europe and the latest record import levels are more than proving this,” Andrii Prokofiev, head of client relations for Ukraine’s transmission system operator, tells London-based International Commodity Intelligence Services. “This is yet another example how free trading, EU market rules and ample storage capacity in Ukraine are offering excellent opportunities to European companies looking to store their volumes.”

Thanks to a new business – oil transshipments from Odesa to Belarus – Ukraine’s oil imports are up 142% for the first half of this year, compared to January-June 2019, reports Ukrtransnafta. Yuzhne’s Black Sea oil terminal today, a tanker is unloading 85,000 of Azeri light, is destined for Belarus’ Mozyr oil refinery, via the Odesa-Brody pipeline. This is the sixth tanker load destined for Belarus to dock in Odesa this year. After fighting with Russia over oil prices, Belarus turned late last year to importing oil from Lithuania and Ukraine. Of the $265 million worth of oil that Ukraine imported during the first half of this year, the State Customs Service reports: 65% came from Azerbaijan, 18% from the US, and 17% from Libya.

President Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Ukraine, Lt. General ret. Keith W. Dayton, testified before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Here are highlights:

Recalling his first visit to Soviet Ukraine, in 1980, as a Russian-speaking US Army field artillery officer: “The fundamental challenges remain the same: Ukraine seeks to rid itself of Moscow’s interference and build a government that is accountable, transparent, and responsive to its citizens. One thing that has not changed – and will not change —is that it is in the national security interests of the United States for Ukraine to overcome these challenges and achieve a future in which it is whole, democratic, and free.”

On challenges of building a modern, market economy: Vested interests continue to resist reform— particularly, reform of the judicial and financial sectors. A strong, independent central bank has been critical to Ukraine’s remarkable macroeconomic success over the past several years. Its continued independence is crucial to a post-COVID-19 economic recovery and to international confidence in Ukraine’s economy… Ukraine needs to ensure a level playing field through transparent economic institutions that deter vested interests and break the stranglehold of corruption. Only when international businesses have real confidence in their investments will Ukraine realize its full economic potential.”

On China’s interest in Ukraine’s defense industries: “Years of corruption and mismanagement have pushed Ukrainian defense firms to the brink of collapse. This neglect has made Ukraine’s hard-earned intellectual property and defense technology vulnerable to Chinese exploitation and expropriation – something we cannot allow. We cannot turn a blind eye to China’s malign intentions in Eastern Europe. Ukraine’s defense sector needs reform, but ultimately it should work for the people of Ukraine — not China.”

China’s “Skyrizon negotiated cooperation in the field of aircraft engines with DCH Group (Ukraine) and came to an agreement,” Xinwei Group’s Skyrizon reported on the Shanghai Stock Exchange website. To advance the Chinese-Kharkiv joint venture to take over Zaporizhia’s Motor Sich, the two companies submitted an application Tuesday to Ukraine’s Anti-Monopoly Committee. In partnership with Alexander Yaroslavsky’s DCH, Skyrizon hopes that Committee approval “will facilitate the early completion of a major restructuring of domestic assets.”

Shabo, the Odesa region winery, opened its third store in China last week. With Shabo stores now in Fuzhou, Guangzhou and X’ian, the company plans to open a store next year in Shanghai, says Stanyslav Kobyletsky, the company’s export director. Shabo produces 50 million bottles a year and exports to 18 countries.

Flights in Ukrainian airspace nearly tripled in July, hitting 12,195, compared to 4,584 in June. But the July number is only one third the level of July 2019. Ukraine’s air traffic control agency derives most of its revenue from flight charges.

For a nation of trucks loaded with grain, sturdy concrete roads represent the path to the future, promised participants at a Concrete Roads conference in Kyiv. Noting that concrete roads hold up in the summer heat, while asphalt roads sag, Infrastructure Minister Vladyslav Krikliy vowed to raise the percent of main roads built with concrete from 1% today to 30% in 2040. As leaders of Ukraine’s cement industry nodded appreciatively, Rada Member Olena Shulyak vowed to spend $700 million a year through 2025 to build concrete roads.

Used car imports continue to flood into Ukraine. In July, 34,300 used imports were registered for the first time, 17% more than in June, and 43% more than in July 2019. So far this year, 173,600 used cars have been registered in Ukraine four times the number of new car imports, reports Ukravtoprom, the car industry association.

 

  • Forecast: 100 Million Ton Harvest
  • King Corn to Expand 10.5%
  • DCH to Work With Chinese at Motor Sich
  • SkyUp Loses $30 Million, UIA Cuts Flights to Europe, Turkish Offers Flights to 9 US Cities
  • Speed Traps Set for Summer Drivers

Ukraine is on track to reach this year the symbolic target of a 100 million ton harvest of grain and oilseeds, predicts the Ukrainian Grain Association. This would be 2% higher than last year’s overall harvest. Whilst drought is pushing the nation’s wheat harvest down 5% yoy, to 26.8 million tons, corn, Ukraine’s largest crop, is expected to grow by 10.5.% to 38.9 million tons.

Ukraine harvested 27 million tons of grain from 48% of its sown area as of July 30, reports Successful Farming, an Iowa-based news site. This volume included 18.3 million tons of wheat, harvested from 72% of the area sown, and 6.9 million tons of barley, from 82% of the area sown, reports Ukraine’s Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture.

Kernel has doubled its grain exports in two years, becoming Ukraine’s largest grain exporter. In the recently completed marketing year, Kernel exported 8 million tons, or 13.3% of Ukraine’s total grain exports. “Two years! This is exactly how much time it took to double our exports,” the company reports. Kernel now has 2.7 million tons of storage capacity, second only to the State Food and Grain Corporation.

With domestic consumption flat, exports are to increase by 5% this year, to 61 million tons. Increasingly seen as a world food power, Ukraine was second only to the US last year in grain exports. Ukraine $9.6 billion, Argentina exported $9.3 billion, and Russia exported $7.9 billion.

In “Feed and Rule,” an essay on ZN site, Foreign Minister Kuleba says Ukraine’s new status of a food power allows it to gain “authority and influence on the world stage.” Noting that the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted food marketing networks and incomes, he writes: “The issue of food security has every chance to become more relevant than the issue of energy prices.” In the arena of food politics, he writes: “In June, Ukraine’s trade representative was elected Deputy Chairman of the International Grains Council. We are preparing for the presidency next year.”

DCH, one of the largest investment groups in Eastern Ukraine, has reached a deal to develop airplane engine maker Motor Sich with Chinese investors Skyrizon Aircraft Holdings Limited. Last year, the US sought to block a Skyrizon takeover the company, which makes advanced engines for fighter jets. Erik Prince, a US private security contractor and informal adviser to President Trump visited the Zaporizhia plant several times over the last year. “Both parties will conduct comprehensive cooperation by carrying out activities to improve the Ukrainian aircraft industry jointly and, in particular, PJSC Motor Sich in Zaporizhia,” DCH said of the partnership with China, without specifying investment amounts or targets. DCH built the new air terminal for Kharkiv. Now it is building a new airport for Dnipro, about 90 miles north of Zaporizhia.

No surprises at the weekly auction of hryvnia domestic government bonds. The auction raised the equivalent of $370 million, slightly less than last week, the Finance Ministry reported on Facebook. Yields were unchanged: 6 months – 7.74%; 1 year – 9.2%; and 2 years – 10.25%.

SkyUp, Ukraine’s discount airline, lost more than $30 million in the first half of this year, the airline tells Interfax-Ukraine. During the first half of this year, SkyUp’s passenger count fell 15% yoy, to 568,900 passengers. It also laid off 10% of its staff. The airline reports flights on his domestic routes average 62% full. Charging $18-28 for a one-way ticket, SkyUp serves Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Lviv, Odesa, and Zaporizhia. Its international flights – to Tirana, Albania and to Burgas, Bulgaria – are 100% full.

With the EU largely closed to Ukrainians, UIA has cancelled its flights to 10 cities for the rest of August: Athens, Barcelona, Baku, Berlin, Chisinau, Frankfurt, Larnaca, Prague, Rome and Vienna. Ukraine’s flag carrier is also cutting frequencies from Kyiv Boryspil to these EU cities: Amsterdam, London, Milan Naples, Nice, and Paris.

Turkish Airlines resumed its pre-lockdown network of flights from Istanbul to Ukraine, with direct flights from the new Istanbul Airport to Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Lviv, Odesa and Zaporizhia.  For Americans and Ukrainians holding US visas, Turkish offers convenient service, with transfers for flights to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Washington. For passengers flying to Ukraine, transfer times often allow for taking a Coronavirus test, needed for dispensing with two weeks of quarantine after arriving in Ukraine.

In the latest effort to rebuild the East, the European Investment Bank is planning to lend €100 million to Ukravtodor to finance almost two thirds of a road building project in government-controlled Luhansk. Separately, the state highway agency is rebuilding 343 km of roads this year in government-controlled Luhansk.

August drivers will encounter almost 400 speed cameras across Ukraine. In addition to 116 speed guns held by police, more than 250 stationary cameras are being activated, reports TSN.ua.  During the week of July 20-26, cameras clocked 187 cars traveling at more than 170 kph (105 mph). The most egregious case was the driver of a Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG who was clocked going 227 kph (141 mph) on the Kyiv-Kharkiv highway. During the week of July 23-29, police stopped 10,000 speeders and 2,037 drunk drivers, reports the National Police.

Flaunting the $8 speeding fine, one driver broke the speed limit 60 times in 50 days, says Volodomyr Karavaev, chairman of the National Road Safety Forum. As a result, Rada deputies are discussing a bill that would suspend the driver licenses of repeat offenders. For excessive cases, the law would require mental exams.

 

  • Despite Corona, Wage Remittances Keep Economy Afloat
  • This Summer, Half of Ukrainian Workers in EU?
  • After Poland, Baltics Increasingly Popular
  • New Ukrenergo Chief Faces Mounting Green Energy Bill
  • Ferry Across the Danube

Sandwiched between Guatemala and the Philippines, Ukraine has the world’s second most dependent economy on remittances from overseas workers, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing World Bank statistics. In a recent story headlined Developing World Loses Billions in Money From Migrant Workers, the Journal reports the remittances last year accounted for 11% of Ukraine’s economy, compared to 13% for Guatemala and 10% for the Philippines.

With barriers erected to block coronavirus, remittances worldwide will drop 20% this year, estimates Dilip Ratha, the World Bank’s lead economist on these money flows. The Journal writes: “That drop would be four times as big as the fall that followed the 2008 financial crisis and the largest drop since the World Bank began recording remittance data in the 1980s.”

Remittances of Ukraine’s labor migrants were down 8.5% in June yoy, falling to $856 million, reports the National Bank of Ukraine. After a strong start to the year, remittance fell sharply in in April and May, ending the down by 4% for the first half of this year. After food exports, labor remittances are the second largest source of income for Ukraine. Through banks, private channels and international payment systems Ukrainians sent home at least $1 billion a month last year.

With Ukraine’s borders closed during the April-May peak of the lockdown, cross-border money flows via banks actually increased by 13% yoy, Alfa-Bank Ukraine reports, citing Central Bank data. Similarly, money transfers via international payment services also were up, by 3%. Closed borders prevented people from sending money home through friends and family, making for an overall drop of 17% for those two months.

During the summer harvest season, 9 million Ukrainians – or half of the nation’s total work force – work in the EU, according to Social Policy Ministry estimates cited by the Kyiv Post in an article titled: “Lured by conditions abroad, Ukrainian workers won’t stay home after quarantine eases.”  Estimates of Ukraine’s workforce range from 16 to 19 million. Noting that EU wages are often four times Ukraine’s, the article notes: “In 2019, more than three million Ukrainians were legally working abroad, mainly in Poland, Finland, Germany and the Czech Republic.”

Ukrainian workers increasingly want to settle in Poland, according to a new study by the National Bank of Poland. Of Ukrainians surveyed in Warsaw this summer, 52% want to stay for three years or more. In a similar survey in 2015, 8% said they wanted to stay for three years or more. 80% said they wanted to stay in Poland for less than one year. In the new national survey, 24% of Ukrainian workers said they would like to stay in Poland permanently, 14% for three years or more, and 23% for one year or less.

The number of job offers abroad for Ukrainians increased by 20% to 8,000, according to a popular job site analyzed by TSN.ua. “The greatest demand for Ukrainian workers continues to be in Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany,” the report said. Only 6% of Ukrainians in Poland are willing to work for Poland’s minimum wage, according to a survey by Studium Europy Wschodniej UW.

Estonia’s “strawberry war” had a messy ending after the government moved too late to allow Ukrainian workers into the Baltic country. Tons of the red berries rotted in the fields. Last Thursday, Wizzair was allowed to fly between Ukraine and Estonia. But flights were stopped the next day due to a rise in Ukraine’s coronavirus rate.

Munich-based FlixBus is aggressively expanding into Ukraine this summer offering new routes: Kyiv-Vilnius and Kyiv-Krakow-Prague. From Vilnius, travellers can connect to 12 other Baltic cities. Ukrainians increasing work in the Baltics where the older generation still speak Russian.

Speaking to business executives in Volyn, an oblast on the Polish border, President Zelenkiy said of the regional labor shortage: “Until there are normal jobs, normal wages, there is nothing that can keep people here.”  He said his ‘5-7-9’ lending program will help entrepreneurs start businesses and his program for 10% mortgages will help young families buy homes.

The 5-7-9% lending program has extended $120 million in loans to 1,755 small businesses, Yulia Kovaliv, Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff, said last week. With the $68,400 the average loan size, 62% have gone to farms and 14% to the processing industry. Eighteen banks are now participating. The three possible rates – 5%, 7% or 9% – depends on the size of the business, number of employee and length of the loan.

Volodomyr Kudritskiy was elected CEO of Ukrenergo by the state electricity transmission company’ Supervisory Board.  A five-year veteran of Ukrenergo, Kudritskiy previously worked for Ukrtransnafta and TNK-BP. A unit of the Finance Ministry, Ukrenergo operates main power transmission lines and the centralized dispatching of the country’s unified energy system.

Since the start of this year, Ukrenergo’s ‘Guaranteed Buyer’ unit has paid for only 27% of the power it took from solar and wind producers. For the last four months, this unit known as ‘GarPok,’ has only paid 5% of its debts to renewable energy producers, according to its website. As of July 20, this debt was $657 million. Under the ‘Green Tariff’ law signed Friday by President Zelenskiy, the government commits to repaying this debt by the end of next year.

The EBRD will lend state gas producer UkrGazVydobuvannya €52 million to increase energy efficiency and to maintain gas production. With a payback period up to 15 years, the interest rate is about 2.5% per year. The state guarantee costs 1% of the loan. UGV will use the money to upgrade its workover rigs for depths over 5 km and to introduce energy efficiencies at its Lokachinsky field, in Volyn region.

The long-delayed cross Danube ferry crossing opened between Isaccea, Romania, and Orlivka, Odesa region. For drivers between Odesa and Constanta, Romania, the ferry will cut out a 2-hour, 100 km detour through Moldova. It’s also Odesa’s first border crossing with the EU.

UIA has returned another Boeing 737-800 to the lessor, trimming its fleet to 33 planes. Of the 33, 14 Boeings are in storage – in Ukraine, Spain and the Czech Republic. UIA has 26 Boeings and seven Embraer commuter jets. Last month, UIA cancelled its lease agreement for three Boeing ‘Super’ Max jets. The planes had not been delivered.

 

  • Ukraine’s Q2 GDP Drop Midway between US and EU
  • Corona Did Not Impact Ag
  • Ze Signs Green Tariff Bill
  • Corona Map Colors Kyiv Green
  • SkyUp Aims for 50% of Market by 2025

Ukraine’s economy shrank by 11% yoy during the second quarter, midway between the EU’s drop of 12.1% and the US drop of 9.5%. The National Bank of Ukraine estimates that during the current quarter, the economy is performing 7.4% below last summer. The central bank has forecast that the fourth quarter drop will be 3.8%, making for a 6% drop for all of 2020. In 2021 and 2022, the bank predicts Ukraine’s economy will grow at an annual rate of 4%.

According to the Central Bank, Farming is expected to be the largest sector of the economy that has been least affected by quarantine restrictions. Food accounts for almost half of Ukraine’s exports. In March and April, farmers largely ignored orders from Kyiv to stop buying and selling seeds and fertilizer. But, lack of rain in May is denting the current harvest. Other sectors that are doing well in the Covid19 economy are IT and domestic tourism.

By doubling spending on road construction, the government averted a steep drop in the construction sector during the first half of this year, according to Oleksiy Blinov, Economist for Alfa-Bank Ukraine. Big spending on roads pulled up infrastructure output by 12%. By contrast, housing construction was down 19%. Overall construction was down 5.5% during the first half, compared to January-June 2019.

The quarantine pushed business from cash to cards. Non-cash card transactions increased to 55%, up from 50% before mid-March. This was reported on the Central Bank Facebook page. With the increasing use of cards over cash, withdrawals from bank ATM machines dropped. During the first half of this year, the total amounts of payments with cards and contactless wallets was almost one third higher than in the first half of 2019.

Reflecting shifting views on the hryvnia, the National Bank of Ukraine sold almost $500 million in July, after buying $1.15 billion in June. In early July, President Zelenskiy and leaders of his party started talking down the hryvnia, calling for a gradual 10% devaluation to 30 to the dollar. This year’s national budget is based on an annual rate of 29.5 hryvnia/$1. Today, the official rates is 27.67 hryvnia / $1.

Zelenskiy’s bad economics: Inflation and devaluation will not help Ukraine grow” headlines an Atlantic Council Ukraine Alert blog by Anders Aslund. “High inflation and depreciation will not stimulate growth” the economist writes from Washington. “On the contrary, it will scare away both domestic and foreign investors… Despite government assurances to the contrary, it would appear that the Zelenskiy administration has abandoned the idea of an independent central bank, which is a key condition for further cooperation with the IMF.”

President Zelenskiy has signed the ‘Green Tariff’ bill, which cuts the tariff on solar electricity by 15% and on wind by 7.5%. The new rates came into effect on first of August, after a decision by the National Commission for Regulation of Economic Competition. Prime Minister Shmygal calculates the new rates will save consumers $250 million a year on renewable energy.

The new law also provides for energy auctions, and requires renewable energy producers to take responsibility for power balancing by 2022.  It has set a 18-month schedule for Ukrenergo to pay back bills to solar and wind producers. Whilst the new law only allocates $50 million toward this debt, it is expected to hit $1 billion at the end of this month. One solution under discussion is to raise ‘Green Bonds’ on international markets, backed by sovereign guarantees.

Under a new color-coded corona map of Ukraine, the Health Ministry colors green all of eastern and central Ukraine, including Kyiv. Green means masks in public transport, stores and shopping centers and movie theaters selling half of possible tickets. Yellow and orange areas are all in western Ukraine. Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk are orange. Three small areas in the west are colored red, meaning a throwback to the full quarantine of last spring.

The map comes as Ukraine recorded 1,000 new infections a day for the last week. Deputy Health Minister Viktor Lyashko predicts that this year 400,000 people in Ukraine will eventually become infected with Covid-19, and 4,000 – or 1% – will die of it. In the five months since early March, 1,725 have died of it. By contrast, 1,608 died every day last year in Ukraine, largely of old age. Lyashko predicts the virus could spread again in October, with the start of the annual flu season. Schools are to open Sept.1.

Austrian Airlines resumed flights yesterday between Vienna and Kyiv Boryspil. Under new rules, Kyiv passengers arriving at Vienna International Airport have to take a Covid-19 test at the airport. The test does not require a booking and the result is available in 3-6 hours. It is unclear if people who test negative still have to go through a 10-day quarantine.

SkyUp, Ukraine’s two-year-old low cost carrier unveils ambitious plans: 90% punctuality in 2021, addition of 5-7 more jets by 2022, and 50% market share of Ukraine’s air market in 2025. Taking advantage of Ukraine’s visa-free access to the EU, SkyUp plans to build up ‘city break’ travel – 3-day trips to EU and domestic cities. Last week, SkyUp announced plans to lease two more Boeing 737s, bringing its all-Boeing fleet to 13 by the end of this year.

Chinese cars bucked a trend, recording 20% more sales in Ukraine during the first half of the year. Overall, new car sales were down 4% during the first half, compared to January-June last year. Chinese cars accounted for only 3.6% of the 37,100 new cars sold during the first half of this year, reports Ukravtoprom, the industry trade association.

To ease Kyiv’s growing traffic jams, the city is opening park and ride lots near six Metro stations. Planning for a total of 2,000 parking spaces, the first lot is already open for 193 cars next to the Green line’s Vidybuchi multi-modal transit terminal. The other five will be at: Akademmistechko, the western terminus of the Red line; Svyatoshin, two stops before the western terminus of Red line; Chervoniy Khutir, the eastern terminus of Green line; Syrets, the western terminus of the Green line; and Ippodrom – the second stop before the southern terminus of the Blue line.

The original English version is from our partner UBN – Ukraine Business News. For more information and news archive, go to: www.ubn.news.

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