Page 50 - UKRRptOct18

Starting Sept. 25, Turkish Airlines increases the frequency of its flights from Istanbul to Odesa to three times a day . Turkish flies to Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, and Zaporozhia. Flights to Dnipro and Ivano Frankivsk were dropped after lobbying by a Ukrainian competitor, Turkish diplomats say. Last year, Turkish carried 600,000 passengers on its Ukraine routes, 18% more passengers than in 2016.
In August, Ukraine’s high speed InterCity trains carried a record 548,000 passengers . All 854 trains traveled at 100% occupancy, reports Evhen Kravtsov, chairman of Ukrzaliznytsya.
9.1.4 Construction & Real estate sector news
Since the beginning of 2018, the construction works have been carried out for a total amount of UAH73.2bn, which is 5.7% more compared to the same period in last year according to the Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities Lev Partskhaladze. "Ukrainian construction companies completed construction works worth UAH73.2bn for eight months of this year, which made 105.7% compared to the same period in 2017," the report reads. According to Partskhaladze, the construction industry continues to show stable results. According to the results of the reporting period, the index of construction of engineering structures was 111.9%, buildings - 100.2% (including 99.6% of residential buildings and 100.8% of non-residential). The city of Kyiv (UAH16.7bn) and Odesa region (UAH9.6bn) became the leaders in terms of construction works. At the same time, Odesa (143.7%), Khmelnytsky (132.5%) and Ivano-Frankivsk (131.4%) regions demonstrated the best results in terms of growth rate.
9.1.5 Retail sector news
9.1.6 Agriculture sector news
Ukraine proposes raising excise taxes on cigarettes by 31% starting Jan. 1, three months before the presidential election. With almost one quarter of Ukrainian adults smoking, the bill may encounter opposition. The tax hike would raise the final price of a pack of cigarettes by 19% to about $1.28. Under EU integration obligations, Ukraine is to nearly quadruple cigarette excise taxes by 2025.
The Ukrainian agricultural ministry has raised the forecasts for the country's grain harvest and exports due to better than expected weather conditions and the favourable situation on the global market. Maksym Martynyuk, the country's first deputy minister of agrarian policy and food, wrote on Facebook that the ministry raised its projection for this year's grain harvest from about 60mn tons to 63.1mn tons. The strong grain yield means Ukraine could export about 42mn tons of cereals in the current marketing year compared with the previously estimated 40.6mn tons. Ukraine is a major producer and supplier of grain to the world market, covering an estimated 17% of the global barley exports, 12% of corn exports and 10% of wheat supplies. The East European country harvested 61.3mn tons of crops in 2017, and sold abroad 39.4mn tons in the previous marketing year, between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018.
50 UKRAINE Country Report October 2018 www.intellinews.com