News

The Russian embassy in Ukraine is waiting for Ukraine to explain its reason for obstructing the broadcast of the Russian film entitled «War 08.08.08. The Art of Betrayal,» which is about the recent military conflict in South Ossetia (Georgia), in Kyiv. The press service of the embassy announced this in a statement. Russia strongly denies the accusations that Ukraine made on the Internet regarding the content of the film. «We are waiting for the Ukrainian side to provide justifiable explanations of the reason for such an unprecedented prevention of the broadcast of the abovementioned film because the prevention violates the principles of strategic partnership and good-neighborliness that are stipulated in Ukrainian-Russian bilateral agreements and accords,» the statement said. The embassy expressed surprise at the tone of the Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry’s statement about Russia’s Ambassador to Ukraine Viktor Chernomyrdin’s participantion in the presentation of the film.

State Employment Agency head Volodymyr Halytskyi predicts increase in the unemployment rate by 36-39% or 200,000-220,000 from the 561,000 rate that was registered on November 1, and will reach the amount of 761,000-781,000 before 2009. He expressed this forecast in an interview for the 5 Channel television company. "The 561,000 unemployment rate will grew by 200,000-220,000 before 2009," Halytskyi predicted. He also noted that the most pessimistic forecasts say that a total of 130,000 employees will be discharged in the metallurgical industry, and 70,000 in the construction and banking industries. Halytskyi stressed that this unemployment rate is not a critical one, and forecasted that it will stand at the December 31, 2006 level. He assured that the National Unemployment Insurance Fund has enough resources at its disposal to cover payments of unemployment compensations before 2009.

The State Customs Service and Russia’s Federal Customs Service have reached agreement on exchange of preliminary information about goods and means of transport crossing the Ukrainian-Russian customs border. The press service of the State Customs Service announced this in a statement. The State Customs Service’s Chairman Valerii Khoroshkovskyi and the Federal Customs Service’s head Andrei Belyaninov signed the relevant protocol on November 11. The protocol provides for real-time exchange of information that will enable the two customs services to compare data about consignments of crossing the Ukrainian-Russian border. In particular, the two customs services will exchange information about quantities of goods, their classification codes, and registration of the actual movement of goods and transport means outside the customs borders of the two countries.

Verkhovna Rada deputy Natalia Korolevska of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc faction, who also chairs the parliamentary committee for industrial and regulatory policy, favours the idea of clipping taxation of entrepreneurs to get over the economic crisis, the Rada administration's information department has informed Ukrainian News. During a panel discussion of the financial-economic crisis and the state of the small and mid-scale business, arranged by the committee headed by Korolevska, the deputy stressed that it is necessary to implement a tax reform and to reform the regulatory sphere. "Authorities have to turn with their face to entrepreneurs and put the stake on namely small and mid-scale business, as long as this is the most viable segment of the economy today," she said. The parliamentarian thinks that in current situation entrepreneurs should lead the way and take part in the state's working out of anti-crisis measures.

Verkhovna Rada Chairman Arsenii Yatseniuk advocates Ukraine's reduction in consumption of energy resources. Yatseniuk gave his position in his opening word at the second Kyiv security forum called "Black-Caspian Sea Region and European Energy Security." Yatseniuk noted that Ukraine was in the first place in the world two years ago in terms of energy consumption to produce one dollar of GDP. "With this situation we cannot survive which the price of energy resources is. That is why the question of energy efficiency, the reduction in consumption of energy resources is the most important question for the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian state, and Ukrainian business on the whole," he said. He further said Ukraine should engage foreign investors to produce more energy resources, as Ukraine could not fund the production of energy resources on its own in the condition of crisis.

The Economics Ministry is proposing that the Cabinet of Ministers impose a limit of 12% on the rate of profit on basic food products. The Economics Ministry made this proposal in its draft amendments to the Cabinet of Ministers resolution No. 1548 entitled «On Establishing the Powers of Executive Organs of Government and the Executive Organs of Municipal councils to Regulate Prices (Tariffs).» The Economics Ministry is proposing that this profit rate should be established for wheat flour of the superior, first, and second grades, rye flour, bread and bakery products, pasta products, cereals, beef, pork, poultry, smoked sausages (excluding superior grade), milk with up to 2.5% fat, curd with up to 9% fat, sour cream with up to 20% fat, eggs, granulated sugar, and sunflower oil.

Yevhen Cherniak, owner of the Khortytsia trade mark, is sure of the shadow alcohol beverage market to be down as the government has introduced minimum retail prices for alcoholic beverages. Ukrainian News learned this from the company's press service. "The government agreed on October 30 the resolution on setting minimum prices for certain types of Ukrainian-made alcohol beverages", the statement says. Thus, The Cabinet has charged the minimum vodka price at UAH 70 per liter of 100% spirit, i.e. UAH 14 per 0.5 liter of vodka; three-star cognac will cost UAH 125 per liter of 100% spirit, i.e. UAH 25 per 0.5 liter of three-star cognac. The minimum price for four-star cognac has been established at UAH 140 per liter of 100% of spirit, i.e. UAH 28.01 per 0.5 liter of four-star cognac, five-star cognac UAH 160 per liter of 100% spirit, i.e. UAH 32 per 0.5 liter of five-star cognac.

The Ukrainian automobile corporation (UkrAvto), intends to build up exports because of financial crisis and decreasing sales at the domestic market. The corporation press service announced this in a statement, the text of which Ukrainian News has obtained. "In this situation, aggravated by Ukraine's admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the fallen volumes of SKD (car assembly) production, we have to re-orient to markets not exposed to serious slowdown, optimize basic automobile production," the press service cites UkrAvto vice president Oleh Papashev. A spokesman from the press service said that at the moment they have begun supply of 14,000 vehicle sets for production of cars by CKD method (welding, varnishing, assembly) in Egypt. "The corporation is studying variants of expanding deliveries of both cars and vehicle sets to a range of countries, including those where it already has subsidiaries," the statement reads.

The Ukrzaliznytsia State Railway Transport Administration is suggesting that the Russian Railways company should introduce a unified lowering coefficient of 0.6 in transportation of crude oil from Kazakhstan across the CIS countries in the 2009 freight year. Ukrainian News learned this from the press service of the Ministry of Transport and Communications. The proposal was made during a tariff conference of the railway administrations of the CIS countries, Estonia and Latvia that took place in Chisinau, Moldova, from October 21 to October 24. According to the report, the railway administrations tried to align their tariff policies in freight transportation for the 2009 freight year. During the conference Ukraine and Russia agreed to extend the period of validity of through tariff rates (i.e. for freight transportation from the point of departure to the point of destination through any station.

Ukraine intends to continue exporting electric energy to Poland in November, Fuel and Energy Ministry press secretary Fent Di informed Ukrainian News. As to him, currently Ukraine is providing 200 MWt of electric energy to Poland. Di specified, previously exports were decreased to 100 MWt from 200 MWt because of insufficient reserves of coal at storehouses of thermoelectric power stations needed for the 2008-2009 heating season. At the same time he stressed, by the moment thermoelectric power stations have stocked up about 3.5 million tons of coal at their storehouses, by 1 million tons more than on the same day in 2007. As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Fuel and Energy Minister Yurii Prodan announced on October 19 the intention to stop exportation of electricity to Poland due to problems in accumulation of coal at thermoelectric power stations for the needs of the 2008-2009 heating season.