Page 36 - UKRRptApr20

Minister Honcharuk said before he was sacked and the coronavirus panic changed everything. .
Under teh previous plan, the largest company of the new group is Kyiv-based State Food and Grain Corporation, with 47 elevators and 227 weighing complexes. “It is the largest corporation -- a grain exporter in Ukraine --and the largest flour producer in the country,” Prime Minister Honcharuk says. “On paper, for some reason, it is unprofitable and inefficient. Through privatization, the company will be able to modernize its facilities, create new jobs and pay more taxes to the state budget.” To prepare for privatization, the government appointed in December Simon Cherniavsky as board chair. Previously Cherniavsky turned around the Mriya agricultural holding after its 2015 collapse.
Four new big companies – valued over $10mn -- were included in teh previous plan: the Bolshevik plant (First Kiev Machine-Building Plant); Khlib Ukrainy, or Bread of Ukraine; State-Food Grain Corporation; and Artemsil, the salt mine. Located in Soledar, Donetsk Oblast, Artemsil is the largest producer of table salt in Eastern Europe. Founded in 1881, Artemsil exports to 16 countries, and can produce 7mn tons of salt a year. To prepare Artemsil for sale, the government stripped it of its legal monopoly.
6.2 ​Debt
DEBT 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017E*
External debt (US$bn, 80 101.7 103.4 117.3 126.2 134.6 142.1 126.3 118.7 113.6 124.2 eop)
External debt (% of 55.8 55.3 91 86.1 77.4 77.3 79.1 96.2 130.4 121.7 126.6 ann'd GDP, eop)
FX reserves (US$bn, 32.5 31.5 26.5 34.6 31.8 24.5 20.4 7.5 12.4 11.9 15.6 eop)
FX reserves (% of 22.6 17.2 23.3 25.4 19.5 14.1 11.4 5.7 13.6 12.8 13.3 ann'd GDP, eop)
External debt / FX 2.5 3.2 3.9 3.4 4 5.5 7 17.7 9.6 9.5 8.0 reserves (x, eop)
FX reserves imports 5.6 3.9 5.9 6 4.1 2.9 2.5 1.3 3.3 3.6 3.3 cov (months)
Source: ICU
To ease the social impact of the coronavirus quarantine, the government plans to nearly double its borrowings this year, to $23bn. ​In a statement to the Rada, the government proposed tripling the budget deficit to $10.6bn and doubling foreign borrowing, to $9.4bn. Budget revenues are forecast to drop by $4bn. The government also radically slashed forecast income from privatization this year, to $18mn, from $220mn.
36​ UKRAINE Country Report​ April 2018 ​ ​www.intellinews.com