EVENT

Polish company to build hot-dip galvanizing plant in Zhytomyr

Polimex Mostostal Ukraina, a subsidiary of the Polish civil engineering company Polimex Mostostal SA, is planning to finish the construction of a new plant in Zhytomyr in 2011, where metal structures will be treated against corrosion by hot-dip galvanization. The Polimex Mostostal Ukraina website reports that the plant, with a planned capacity of 50,000 tons of structures annually, will be the largest facility of this kind in Ukraine. The plant will be equipped with machinery from internationally acclaimed producers. The production line is to be furnished with 13x1.6x3.3 m baths weighing up to nine tons. The Zhytomyr oblast administration’s website quotes the administration chairman Serhii Ryzhuk as saying that 170 million hryvnias are to be invested in the plant’s construction and 220 jobs will be created. Hot-dip galvanizing is a state-of-the-art method that protects ready-made metal and steel structures from air-, water-, and soil-induced corrosion.

Canadian premier on Great Famine and freedom of expression

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who arrived on an official visit to Ukraine, considers the Great Famine to be “one of history’s greatest crimes,” which resulted in the deaths of several million people. “What is worst of all is that these people were killed due to orchestrated actions. I think that this monument, this museum [the Great Famine Victims’ Memorial in Kyiv – Ed.] should be a reminder of how important freedom, democracy and independence are, and that we must not forget about the need to defend them,” said Harper. For his part, the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych said that “the people who died during the famine ... a huge number of people, our ancestors, these were the people whom the country had lost, their families had lost, and that memory remains holy for the modern society.” He said: “We will always condemn that regime, Stalin’s regime, which had committed this crime in those years.”

At the press conference, the Canadian prime minister said that during his meeting with Yanukovych the matter of upholding the fundamental values of freedom and democracy in Ukraine was discussed. “I heard reassurances from both President Viktor Yanukovych personally and the Ukrainian government, that the fundamental values and traditions of freedom and democracy are upheld in Ukraine,” said the Canadian premier.

Austrians to invest 100 million euros in Kolomyia

Having over 365 years of experience in the wood processing market, Austrian wood processing company Holzindustrie Schweighofer GMBH plans to build in 2011 a wood processing complex worth 100 million euros in the city of Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk region. The plant’s production capacity, according to the company’s press release, will amount to 500,000 cubic meters of wood annually. The plant will process softwood with a diameter of eight inches or more. According to the chairman of the Ivano-Frankivsk regional state administration Mykhailo Vyshyvaniuk, processing of wood will leave no waste, since the plant will receive power from a wood-waste-fueled power plant. To implement the project, the company plans to buy a non-agricultural land area of 25 hectares, which previously housed a petroleum products store. The company plans to sell the products using the Ukrainian woodworking complex in Ukraine, the US, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Japan.