Top Stories May 2: Ukraine’s military tech, Kyrgyzstan’s eco city

UKRAINE

The Ukrainian government has established a defense tech cluster called Brave1, a platform for cooperation between government, business, science, the media and investors. The idea is to have Ukraine’s military test tech innovations, the Ministry of Economy will provide funding, while the National Defense and Security Council will oversee the platform. [Source: Dou.ua] 

Israel-based company Israel IT through cooperation with Ukraine’s Mergewave Capital has started looking for Ukrainian IT companies with 50 to 200 staff for potential merger seeking a 51%-stake. Israel IT will bring its expertise in marketing and scaling up to help its new assets increase turnover over a three to five period.  [Source: Dou.ua]

The Digital Transformation Ministry of Ukraine has expanded the list of criteria for IT companies’ employees that get exemptions from mandatory military service. A company must be in compliance with minimum three listed criteria that include turnover, the number of employees, and the significance to the national economy. [Source: Highload.Today]

IT companies occupied nearly half of a list of best major employers in Ukraine, a research by Forbes magazines and Work.ua revealed. The best IT companies were Genesis (№1 in the list), EPAM Systems (4), Ciklum (6), Intellias (8) and SoftServe (10). [Source: Highload.Today]

Ukraine’s IT services exports dropped by 16% to $1.68 billion in the first quarter of 2023 compared with the corresponding period of 2022 which in its turn saw the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 22, 2022. The trade association IT Ukraine said in its report the exports have become almost flat over recents months. [Source: Dou.ua]

KYRGYZSTAN

The government of Kyrgyzstan is building an eco city of Asman by the lake Issyk Kul. The future city of up to 700,000 residents that will feature eco-friendly technologies will cost nearly $20 billion over a period of 7 to 10 years. [Source: Kloop.kg]

HR company Kyrgyz Inter Work Exchange has established a subsidiary in Germany, IWEX Germany. The new company will help Kyrgyzstan citizens find jobs in Germany and arrange internships for professionals and students. [Source: Economist.kg]

STARTUPS

Russian bank Sber has launched its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot GigaChat positioning it as a rival to ChatGPT in a testing mode with only limited categories of testers having access to the platform. Sber sees the advantage of GigaChat in better results in Russian language than those of other famous neural networks. [Source: Reuters]

Netherlands-based startup not8 has got an investment bank loan of $165,000 from Rabobank that will be spent on further product development and additional hiring. not8 is a service that allows developers to exchange messages within a product – a website or a mobile application, for example. [Source: RB]

Russian platform for management of financial documents DocsInBox started operations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The target audience is Russian entrepreneurs that do business in the UAE. [Source: RB]

Elmo Rent, an Estonian-based car sharing services provider catering to B2B and B2C segments, has raised $2.86 million of investments. In Tallinn and Turku, Elmo Rent uses a government approved technology of teledriving, when the vehicle is delivered to the customer in a remote manless mode, eyeing two unnamed foreign cities to become a testing polygon for this technology in 2023. [Source: BalticVC] 

UZBEKISTAN

Uzbekistan is seeking its World Trade Organization membership by speeding up negotiations with existing members. Country’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev outlined the government significantly liberalized the economy over years by decreasing the number of ministries from 61 to 28 as well as the number of requirements and other barriers for business. [Source: Central Asia]

Veon, a global provider of connectivity and Internet services headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, established Vean AdTech company with headquarters in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. With usage of big data and artificial intelligence (AI), Veon AdTech will focus on the development of innovative advertising. [Source: Spot]

Uzbekistan’s National Agency for Prospective Projects registered the first participant of so-called “sandbox”, a special regulation mode for NFT-projects and other blockchain-based ideas. This participant is an Internet domain company UZINFOCOM that develops its NFT to register and validate domain names. [Source: Spot]  

KAZAKHSTAN

Skoda Transportation is negotiating with the government of Kazakhstan the production of trams and e-buses in Almaty and Pavlodar. A government official said there’s been no such production in the country so far, making the project a high priority for authorities. [Source: Central Asia]

VK Cloud, a Russian provider of cloud services for business, opened its platform in Kazakhstan in partnership with local company QazCloud. The services are targeted at small and medium-sized Kazakhstani companies to help them scale up, get better access to new markets and gain more flexibility in management. [Source: Profit.kz]

5G mobile networks will start working in some regional capitals of Kazakhstan and federal cities by the end of 2023. Through 2026, 70% of the federal cities and 60% of regional capital will be covered by such networks contributing to economic growth of the country. [Source: Profit.kz]

MARKETPLACES

The government of Kyrgyzstan will launch a marketplace for state securities in May 2023. The marketplace will make the process of buying of the securities easier for professional investors, banks, microfinance organizations, traders, etc. and enhance the liquidity of the national security market. [Source: Economist.kg]

Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online marketplace, will expand its operations to neighboring Georgia, Azerbaijan and Tadjikistan. The timeframe of the expansion is still unclear, Wildberries is active in a few other countries, including Israel, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Uzbekistan. [Source: TASS]