Page 72 - UKRRptSept23

opened the most offices and co-working spaces in Ukraine. At the same time, almost half of the companies have up to 25% of their Ukrainian team abroad. Only three companies have an entire team in Ukraine.
9.1.8 Tourism sector news
The mutual tourist traffic of Russia and China will be about 500,000 travelers in 2023, the press service of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development told reporters.
"The mutual tourist traffic of Russia and China reached fourmn people in the pre-COVID year of 2019 - approximately twomn individuals from each side. In 2023, according to forecasts of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, the mutual tourist traffic will be about 500,000 persons," the press service said.
The launch of visa-free group traveling and the electronic visa for individual travelers will make it possible for the Russian tour industry to achieve pre-pandemic figures and even outpace them, the ministry noted.
9.1.9 Utilities sector news
Ukraine is working with partners within the Peace Formula to restore and protect the energy system. "Ukraine is working with allies worldwide to increase the power equipment supply, which will allow us to add 2.9 GW of power to the power system by December," said Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. He also noted the active interaction with European partners in matters of increasing electricity supply and Ukraine's readiness to provide European companies with the opportunity to store gas in Ukrainian underground storage facilities. In parallel, the Ministry of Energy and the National Security Defense Council (NSDC) are working on accelerating the development of distributed generation. The priority tasks that have been established by the president are emphasized, and they include the decentralization of the energy system with an emphasis on distributed generating capacity, energy storage facilities, demand management systems, and increasing the share of RES directly strengthen the country's energy security. Solutions have already been developed to ensure power supply to critical infrastructure enterprises in the face of targeted enemy attacks.
Nuclear power provides half of Ukraine's electricity needs and generates income. For the first seven months of the year, the share of nuclear power plants in the structure of electricity production was 47.6%, thermal power plants - 27.8%, hydroelectric power plants, and hydro accumulation power plants - 14.1%, renewable energy sources - 10.5%, reported Energoatom. During the specified period, 60.8 billion kWh of electricity was produced, of which 28.9 billion kWh were generated through nuclear energy. Nuclear power plants have produced four billion kWh more electricity than was forecast at the beginning of the year. Also, during the first half of the year, Energoatom received UAH 68B in revenues and paid almost UAH 11B in taxes to the state budget. "Even though the volume of electricity sales decreased by 30% for objective reasons (due to the temporary occupation of the Zaporizhzhya NPP), the company managed to maintain revenue almost at last year's level," said the state-owned enterprise.
72 UKRAINE Country Report September 2023 www.intellinews.com