Page 55 - bne IntelliNews Country Report: Ukraine Dec17

Ukraine's sunflower yield in 2017 is the lowest in the last three harvesting seasons - the country's farmers harvested 11.2mn tonnes of sunflower seeds from an area of 5.7mn ha as of November 3. An implied yield is 1.96 tonnes per ha, the nation's Agrarian Ministry reported the same day. The yields are 11.1% less than a year ago (2.21 tonnes per ha), when farmers harvested 12.6mn tonnes of sunflower seeds from 5.7mn ha. The total area of planted sunflower is about 5.9mn ha, about the same level as last year when the total sunflower harvest was 13.6mn at an average yield of 2.24 tonnes per ha.
Ukraine had a bumper harvest this year and meat and poultry production are growing strongly . Ukraine increased exports of poultry by 14.4% year-on-year, to 228,635 tonnes (in monetary terms poultry exports increased by 34.6%, to $323mn) in January-October 2017, according to the State Fiscal Service. Poultry imports increased by 38.7% y/y, to 94,120 tonnes (in monetary terms by 37.4% y/y, to $38.39mn) in the same period. Ukraine’s pork exports increased by 2.3 tomes y/y, to 4,569 tonnes (in monetary terms the figure amounted to $9.66mn against $3.07mn) in January-October. Pork imports increased by 1.6-times (in monetary terms pork imports amounted to $7.24mn vs $3.7mn in January-October 2016), to 4,090 tonnes, Interfax news agency reported on November 7.
9.1.7 TMT sector news
Ukraine’s telecom regulator will hold a tender on January, 23, 2018 to sell seven national IMT licences (marketed as 4G mobile licences), the regulator said in a statement on November 9. The total starting price for 15-year licences and related frequency bands of 80 MHz was set at UAH2.288bn ($86.7mn). Winners will also have to pay fixed conversion fees, which total UAH500mn (payable to the current owner of the frequencies, the private company MMDS-Ukraine). The 4G tender follows three tenders for 3G mobile licences that were held in February, 2015, when three leading mobile operators of Ukraine paid UAH8.77bn to the state budget (at an aggregate starting price of UAH8.1bn) and UAH530mn for conversion.
The EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy, Johannes Hahn, is working on lowering roaming tariffs between the EU and Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine , he said in an interview with Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty on November 16. Hahn added that he was aiming for the eventual abolition of the roaming tariffs. All three Eastern Partnership countries have signed association agreements with the EU that do away with trade tariffs for most commodities. However, telecommunications tariffs remain high. Starting in June, roaming tariffs were abolished within the EU; callers only pay domestic prices when calling from or to another EU country. Hahn said that he was adopting a "step-by-step approach" to eliminating roaming tariffs in regard to the three countries, and that national governments also should engage with telecommunications operators to negotiate lower tariffs.
9.1.9 Utilities sector news
The meeting of Ukraine's energy and utility regulator, the NERC, failed to convene on November 23 due to a lack of quorum. The regulator had been planning to adopt a forecasted wholesale electricity price for 2018, which is vital for thermal power plants, the majority of, which are operated by DTEK
55 UKRAINE Country Report December 2017 www.intellinews.com