Ukraine will supply the Czech Republic with trolleybuses. Ukrainian automobile company Bogdan has won a tender in consortium with Czech firm Tram For Envi to supply the country with six 12-meter trolleybuses. The Czech-Ukrainian consortium offered trolleybuses for 2.6 million euros, or 440,000 euros per bus. The Bogdan trolleybuses are the only ones made in Ukraine that are certified in the EU.
Meanwhile, the European Investment Bank will loan Ukrainian city Lutsk 4.3 million euros to buy 29 trolleybuses. New trolleybuses will help 217,000 residents of Lutsk get more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient public transport, the Infrastructure Ministry of Ukraine has stated. Lutsk will buy trolleybuses from Bogdan.
Energy ministry plans to start mining cryptocurrency. Ukraine may start using its current surplus of nuclear energy to mine cryptocurrencies, the Ministry of Energy has stated, dubbing it “one of the modern tools for using excess electricity” that can help generate additional funds. The electricity surplus came about due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ministry said. “We can really transform the ‘liability’ into an ‘asset,’” it continued. “It is about the future of Ukraine as a modern state.”
Naftogaz has roughly $2.4 billion in different currencies on its accounts. The state energy company’s capital consists of Hr 7 billion, $1.74 billion, and 340 million euros, according to its CEO Andriy Kobolev. “At any time when a shareholder decides to pay dividends or receive funds in another way, these funds can be transferred to the national budget to finance programs,” Kobolev has said.
Ukraine sees a rise in gas imports in 2020. Ukraine has increased natural gas imports by 1.6 times or by 1.5 billion cubic meters in January-April 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. In total, Ukraine has imported 3.9 billion cubic meters of gas over the last four months. Most of it comes from Slovakia (2.4 bcm) and Hungary (0.9 bcm).
Local farmers complete the sowing of early spring crops on 11 million hectares. As of May 4, Ukrainian farmers completed 72% of the sowing planned for early spring crops, with 4.5 million hectares to go, the economy ministry has stated. So far, the farmers have sown sunflower (4.4 million hectares); corn (4 million hectares); spring barley (1.5 million hectares); soybeans (550,000 hectares); spring wheat (180,000 hectares) and sugar beets (180,000 hectares).
Ukraine won’t resume full-fledged international air travel this summer. Ukrainians will be able to travel abroad no earlier than in autumn, according to Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “We’ll very carefully try to start with the return of domestic traffic in summer,” Kuleba has said. “It’s more difficult to work with international traffic, as decisions here depend not only on us. The world will begin to come to life around September.”
Ukraine will try to attract more Chinese tourists after the quarantine ends. Ukraine and China should open up for each other faster than with other countries, as China will recover faster from COVID-19, Mariana Oleskiv, state tourism chief, has said. “Most European leaders said that, before the end of summer, the EU’s borders would be completely closed to the outside,” she said. “I have great hopes, in particular for the Chinese market, because China has already weakened its quarantine measures.”
