Naftogaz will start buying Ukrainian gas at the local exchange. Naftogaz Trading, a subsidiary of state-owned oil and gas company Naftogaz, plans to start trading on the Ukrainian Energy Exchange in March to buy more natural gas produced in Ukraine. Naftogaz Trading will be buying up to 10 million cubic meters of gas daily. The company expects to become the main player on the market and thus to support domestic gas producers.
A Ukrainian engineering firm will design a runway for the international airport in Dnipro. Called Ukrdorpoekt, the company will develop a set of runway designs that will cost the government $1 million, the Infrastructure Ministry announced on Feb. 10. Infrastructure Minister Valdyslav Kryklii said that, for Dnipro, modernizing its airport is an acute issue, as the population of the city and its oblast is over 3.2 million. “We need to open the skies over Dnipro,” Kryklii said. In 2020, Ukraine will pump almost $50 million into the renovation of the airport.
Supermarket chain Novus intends to open 10 new stores in Kyiv. The company’s management plans to expand its operations in Kyiv, because local purchasing power is growing and more people are moving to the capital, Interfax-Ukraine reported, quoting Ihor Landa, CEO of BT Invest Ukraine, the company that runs Novus. There are currently 750 vacancies open for jobs at the Novus chain.
The central bank will stress test 16 banks in Ukraine, 13 less than a year ago. The National Bank has picked 16 banks for stress-testing in 2020, according to its Feb. 11 statement. The central bank will analyze how these banks react to unfavorable economic scenarios. Such tests are designed to determine whether a bank has enough capital to withstand the impact of abrupt negative changes on the market. Initially, the central bank chose 25 local banks, but some of them had already passed the test successfully over the previous two years. Those banks have been excluded from the stress-test list, but they are still obliged to reveal information about their assets.
Ukrainian startup Delfast will sell e-bikes to the Mexican police. Delfast has signed a contract with the police department of Mexicali, a Mexican city in the state of Baja California, to provide local police officers with e-bikes, the Kyiv Post reports. Police officers from the department in Mexicali will start testing the bikes and, if everything works out, Delfast will supply more. The Delfast e-bikes can speed up to 80 kilometers per hour, go for 240 kilometers on a single charge with no pedal assistance, include GPS trackers and can be turned on and off remotely.
U.S. firm Abstract buys Ukrainian startup Flawless App. While the companies did not disclose the sum of the acquisition, the latest valuation has shown Flawless App’s value at $2 million. Before the purchase, the Ukrainian startup had already been already a major player with heavyweights like Uber, Disney, eBay, Nike, Spotify among its clients. Both Abstract and Flawless develop applications for designers. Abstract offers a wider palette of services, for which Flawless App has promised to be a perfect fit. Flawless App was designed for programmers who create iPhone apps and allows designers to track how changes to an app’s code alter its design in real time.
Ukraine’s e-governance portal Diia hits 1 million downloads in four days after its launch. About 600,000 people downloaded its version for Android devices, while 400,000 others downloads were made by iOS (iPhone) users , according to Digital Transformation Deputy Minister Oleksiy Vyskub. For now, Diia allows its users to access driver’s licenses and car registration documents from their smartphones. Later, however, Diia will introduce up to 1,000 other public services online.
The Cabinet of Ministers is set to continue its low-inflation policy. As low-controlled inflation is a prerequisite for economic growth, the government will continue pushing for a low-inflation policy in the future, Economy Minister Tymofiy Mylovanov wrote on Facebook. “In the economic history, there are almost no examples of rapid economic growth along with considerable inflation,” he said. The minister also believes that the low inflation that exists now “provides all the grounds for carrying on with lowering the interest rates in the next few months.” This, in turn, will enable effective crediting of small- and medium-sized enterprises, issuing mortgage loans, and starting big construction projects, the minister said.
