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9 July 1998
For immediate release
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MYKOLAIV REGION ACHIEVES 9% INDUSTRIAL GROWTH IN FIRST HALF OF 1998
The Mykolaiv region achieved a 9% industrial growth in the first six months of 1998, compared with the corresponding period of 1997. The food and light industries recorded production growths of 20% and 71%, respectively. The volume of barter operations dropped to 35.3% of all transactions.
MEXICO IS INTERESTED IN PURCHASING UKRAINIAN METALS AND GRAIN
Speaking in an interview to DINAU's correspondent in Mexico City on July 8, Friz Jacobson, a prominent Mexican business executive who has recently visited Kiev with a Mexican commercial mission, said that his country is interested in purchasing certain types of Ukrainian metals and wheat, which are of superb quality. The Mexican businessman dismissed, as idle and unsubstantiated, speculations about Ukraine allegedly dumping its products on foreign markets. Such rumors could have been justified provided the Ukrainian Government had subsidized Ukraine's exporters, which is not the case, he stressed and added that it's just a matter of lower production costs in Ukraine compared with Mexico's. According to him, Mexico will buy only such Ukrainian products which are in short supply in Mexico. Mr. Jacobson also spoke out in favor of lowering Mexico's unduly high custom duties which have been hampering Mexican-Ukrainian trade.
NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SOCIAL PARTNERSHIP'S IMPORTANT ROLE IN COORDINATING EFFORTS TOWARD SOLVING SOCIAL-LABOR PROBLEMS
Mr. Rybak, chief of the Secretariat of the National Council for Social Partnership (NSCP) stressed in his interview to DINAU that the NCSP keeps a very watchful eye on social aspects of the government's economic policy and on the overall social situation in Ukraine. The NCSP is also engaged in searching ways and means to pull Ukraine out of its current economic quagmire, in promoting rights of domestic producers and consumers, in studies of the national economy's ongoing restructuring and deregulation, and in fostering small and midsize private businesses in Ukraine. Much of the NCSP's time and effort is devoted to coordinating the process of negotiations between the government and trade-unions with a view of concluding the General Tariff Agreement and finding ways to avert any likely disputes and conflicts.
IOM CHIEF OFFICER IN UKRAINE PRAISES UKRAINE'S STEPS TO PREVENT TRAFFICKING IN HUMAN BEINGS
On July 6, John Steven Cook, Chief Officer in Ukraine of the International Organization for Migration, held a press conference in Kiev to praise the Ukrainian government for its readiness to take preventive measures in the international community's effort to curb trafficking in human beings as this century's most repulsive social phenomenon. According to Mr. Cook, Ukraine has become one of the pioneering nations in the IOM's informational campaign against smuggling of women and girls for sexploitation purposes. To appraise this early effort, an international workshop will be shortly held in Lviv, which will address possible further steps, Mr. Cook disclosed. He expressed his very favorable opinion about Ukraine's legislation which determines trade and trafficking in human beings as a criminal activity. Ms. Iryna Golubeva, Ukraine's Deputy Minister for Family and Youth issues, informed that a number of governmental and public organizations have embarked on jointly drafting the National Program for Preventing Trafficking in human beings. As it was stated at the press conference, Ukrainian women and girls are in high demand for sexploitation abroad with humanware dealers resorting to deceit in luring Ukrainian girls abroad with false offers of allegedly quite decent and highly remunerative jobs.
UKRAINIAN SU-27 TAKES PART IN AEROSHOW IN ISRAEL
On July 6, a SU-27 fighter-bomber of the Ukrainian Air Force piloted by Mykola Koval scored a major success taking part, among over two scores of aircraft from two dozen nations, in what local observers say was the greatest aerial show Israel ever witnessed. Commenting on the SU-27 plane's spectacular overflight, brimful of complicated aerobatics, one of Israeli newspapers said it had made the audience mouth-gaping.
KIEV HOSTS EXPO-FAIR OF ENERGY-SAVING EQUIPMENT AND TECHNOLOGIES
The Ukrainian capital played host to an International Expo-Fair of Energy-saving Equipment and Technologies, the fifth of its kind. The expo-fair's exhibits were reported to be of great interest to the host party, which has been plagued by chronic shortages of fuels and supply of electricity.
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